3D Shapes and Computer Modeling.

3D shapes are everywhere around us and these days, computers are also everywhere. So of course, we have learned how to represent 3D shapes on the computer screen. We can make computer graphical models of anything in the real world and in our daily routine we often encounter graphical computer models of 3D objects, both real and imaginary.

It’s a sunny day, so you decide to take the kids for an outing. First you need to find out how to get to DinoWorld theme park, what time it opens and how much it costs. So you go to Google, type in ‘DinoWorld’, a couple of clicks and there you are, in the DinoWorld website. A smiling animated Stegosaurus tells you ‘We open 9 am every day of the year except Christmas Day, Admission costs an arm and a leg, Just click here for a route map to DinoWorld. The Tyrannosaurus is already looking forward to eating, sorry, meeting you!’. So off you go!

Computers, working every day, 24 hours a day, for everybody, for every need. CGI animation and 3D computer models are familiar to all of us. We see them on the big screen, as in Toy Story and Ice Age 3, we see them in video games and TV titles on the small screen, we see them when an architect designs a house or a new kitchen for us. 3D computer modeling is important in Medical research, for modeling parts of the human body, in Geology for modeling geological structures like mountains, in Chemistry for modeling large molecules, and in Engineering for modeling devices and structures. 3D graphical modelling with computers is here to stay!

At school, there are few Educational Software 3D modeling packages which are truly accessible to children. Tabs is one such, a really easy 3D modeling software which enables a child to make his or her own original computer models, starting with basic 3D shapes such as cubes, spheres, pyramids and so on. These can be moved around and manipulated, textured and colored, and printed out on paper or card so that the 3D model can be constructed in the real physical world.

Children who construct 3D shapes on the computer, moving them, rotating, turning, shrinking and making them larger, and coloring and texturing the faces, will in the process be gaining some insight into how Ice Ages 1, 2 and 3 were made, not to mention Cars and Monsters Inc!

Making 3D shapes and models with FabLab ModelMaker easy 3D software also gives a child a big boost in mathematical learning, because recognizing and accurately naming 3D Shapes, and understanding their properties is a really important part of mathematical education.

For example, How many surfaces has a cube? How many lines, edges and vertices does the cube have? What is its volume, what about the perimeter? What does the Net of the cube look like? How many faces has a dodecahedron? and so on. Children using tabs easy 3D software absorb this kind of information every day, whether they use it at home or at school. This activity also helps kids recognize mathematical 3D shapes in the everyday world around them. For example, buildings are usually made from cuboids, sometimes with wedges and curves. Mugs are often cylinders, so are tin cans and toilet rolls. The Pyramids are pyramids, and so on! Tabs easy 3D software is designed specifically to help children understand and interpret correctly the world in which they live.

We’ve already reached a point in the development of computing and IT where it has penetrated every aspect of life, from washing our clothes in automatic washing machines, to going to the library (I renew my books online), to getting away from civilization in the Great Outdoors (we take a Sat Nav with us). Computers are everywhere you go, even the sermon at church is backed up with a PowerPoint presentation and often a podcast download! Children deserve the best possible education in IT and computing which means the best educational software to prepare them for the increasing power and usefulness of computers in the future!

For learning about modeling on the computer and for exploring the mathematical properties of 3D shapes, that educational software has to be tabs easy 3D software from Aspex.