collaboration and cooperation: building a toy shop in ... · 3dvinci and project spectrum asd...

3DVinci and Project Spectrum ASD Collaboration and Cooperation 1

Collaboration and Cooperation: Building a Toy Shop in Google SketchUpIn this project, a group of students work together to fill an empty toy shop with merchandise of their choice.

Scenario: A group of students is given a model of an empty toy shop. The students discuss and agree upon a few types of toys to find, and each student is responsible for finding his or her assigned toy models. Then the group comes back together to place the toy models inside the shop.

The toy models can be downloaded from the Google 3D Warehouse, so there is practically no modeling involved. Therefore, this project can be enjoyed by students as young as 7 or 8 who have little computer experience. Students who have some 3D modeling experience can create their own toy models, or modify models they download.

Project Goal: Collaboration, communication, cooperation.

1. Project Planning: The group of students will discuss what sorts of toys the shop will contain, and each student will be responsible for finding a set number of specific toys. Given the spatial layout of the shop, the students must also discuss where each student’s toys will be placed.

2. Individual Tasks: Working individually, each student will find the toy models for which he / she is responsible, making any necessary, minor changes.

3. Project Completion: The students rejoin the group, and take turns placing their models in the shop. All group members can offer feedback, including opinions on where toys should be placed, and suggestions for changes to the models.

To get some basic knowledge of Google SketchUp, including how to download and install the software, set up your mouse, use the drawing tools, and navigate the view (zooming and orbiting), please read 3DVinci’s Getting Started Guide (PDF).

PC users: go to http://www.3dvinci.net/SketchUp_Intro_PC.pdf.Mac users: go to http://www.3dvinci.net/SketchUp_Intro_MAC.pdf.

Collaboration and Cooperation: Building a Toy Shop in Google SketchUp


Step 1: Project Planning1. The first step is to start with the model of the empty toy shop, which can be found in the Google 3D

Warehouse. Go to this URL: http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse. In the search field, enter “empty toy shop.”

2. One of the resulting models (if not the only one), is the one shown below by me (Bonnie Roskes). To download it, click the “Download to Google SketchUp” link.

3. After the download is complete, open the model. It looks like this: an empty shop with two display cases and two display tables.



This project is written assuming a group of three students, but your student group can be any size.

After much discussion, my imaginary group has come up with the following assignments:

• Student 1: Three robots and three animals, to be placed in the blue display case.

• Student 2: Six transportation toys (trains, cars, etc.), to be placed in the yellow display case.

• Student 3: A train set for the green table, a building set for the red table, and three large toys to be placed against the walls.

Some other suggestions for toy categories: dolls and dollhouses, electronics, arts and crafts supplies, puzzles.

Step 2: Individual TasksIn this section, I’ll demonstrate how to find toy models, describe criteria to look for, and suggest ways to change models to make them easier to place in the shop.

During this step, the students can work simultaneously on their own computers. Alternately, they can take turns finding their models on one computer, while the other students watch and make (hopefully helpful) suggestions.

1. First, we’ll look for a robot model. Return to the 3D Warehouse website, and enter “robot” in the search field. As you might expect, there are dozens of results, many of which look quite amazing. (Your search results may look different than mine - the 3D Warehouse is constantly changing and growing.)

2. The “thumbnail” views of these models don’t provide much detail, so click one of the model names (you can also click on the thumbnail picture).



This opens a new page with the model’s details. For the robot shown below, you can see who uploaded it (“Jacco,” listed at the top right corner), how many views and downloads it’s received (a whole lot), and what sort of ratings it has received (12 five-star ratings).

3. For even more detail, you can click the 3D View button. While in 3D view, you can drag your mouse from side to side to spin the model around, and use your scroll wheel to zoom in and out. You can also pan the view by holding the Shift key while you drag your mouse.



4. Because this is a collaborative effort, we need to make sure that no toy model has a huge file size. To see the model’s size, click the Download Model button in the lower right corner. The menu that opens tells us that this robot is a 2 mb file.

On most systems, a 2 mb SketchUp file will perform just fine, but if you add several toys of this size to the empty shop, the shop model file size will mushroom, and the model will perform slowly. So unless you plan on having a small number of toys in the stop, we should probably give up on this model, even though it’s very cool.

5. To view through more robot models, go back to the 3D Warehouse page with the search results and use the familiar Google navigation icons at the bottom of the page.



6. Here’s the one I settled on: a modest 228 kb robot model. To download it, click the “Download 228 kb” link.

The download link shown above says “Google SketchUp 6,” which is an older version of SketchUp (I’m using Version 7). This just means that the robot was created in SketchUp 6; you can still open it in SketchUp 7 or any version past 6.

If you want to find this exact model in the 3D Warehouse, enter “aluminum robot” in the search field.

7. Once the model is downloaded, open it in SketchUp. This step is to make sure the model looks OK, and to see if any changes are needed. This robot has no extra objects in it, so I’ll keep it as is.



We could measure the robot to check whether if it’s the appropriate size for a toy, and if we did we’d see it’s way too large. But let’s leave the size as something we’ll change later.

8. To save the model, choose File / Save As from the main menu. Save the model to your hard drive.

9. You can then close the model.

10. Here’s another robot model I found, uploaded by “riveteer.” I want to use this model, but there is an extra object on the model’s display image: a tiny little man.

If you want to find this exact model in the 3D Warehouse, there are a couple of tricks you can use. In the search field, you can enter any part of the model’s exact title (such as “demo-lishator” or “demolistion” (sic)). You can also use author syntax to find models uploaded by riveteer; this would look like “robot author:riveteer.” Keep in mind that these advanced search terms don’t always work perfectly!



11. To fix this “problem,” download and open the model in SketchUp. Now we have a better view of the little guy, whose name, incidentally, is Bryce. (Bryce was included by default in many SketchUp 6 models, and is often used for scaling purposes. He’s not really little.).

Knowing that Bryce is actually person-sized, then you’ve probably realized that this robot is larger than 10 toy shops put together. But again, we can change its size later, once we get it into the shop.

12. We want to place the robot in the shop, but not Bryce. So click the Eraser tool.

13. Click Bryce with the eraser to remove him (sorry, Bryce).



14. Here’s another toy I found: a steam car toy by “Ahlplex.” It’s clear that more than just the car appears in this model, but it’s not immediately obvious what that other object is.

15. After downloading and opening the model, it’s still not clear what this thing is.

16. To see the entire model, click the Zoom Extents tool.



So that mystery object was Bryce’s foot. (You’ll see Bryce in lots of 3D Warehouse models, and “Sang” appears in some model created in SketchUp 7.) Actually there are two Bryces; one was probably left in the model by mistake.

3D Warehouse models can be submitted by anyone and everyone, and model quality can vary greatly. Even for this well-crafted steam car model, the author forgot to erase his Bryces before uploading (unless keeping them was intentional). This is a good example as to why each model should be checked and fixed before you save it and use it in your shop.

17. Erase both Bryces, and only the barely-visible car remains.



18. Use Zoom Extents to fill the screen with the car, then save the file.

19. Here’s the last example I’ll show in this section: a toy rocket by “ckerins.” All looks OK in this view.



20. But when the model is opened in SketchUp, you can see a few infinite dashed lines.

21. These are guide lines, which are used by some modelers to mark measurement or direction. But if guide lines appear here, they will also appear in the toy shop. So erase them, then save the model.

Step 3: Project CompletionOnce each student has downloaded, fixed, and saved all of his / her models, the group gets back together at the computer that has the empty toy shop model displayed.

Each student’s toy models must also be available on this computer. If the toy models aren’t stored on the same hard drive, they can be brought over either from a portable drive or a network connection.



Student 1 will take the controls first, importing all of the robot and animal models and placing each one on the blue display case. Students 2 and 3 can watch and offer suggestions such as “I think that robot can fit on the bottom shelf” or “maybe the elephant should face the other way.”

In this section, I’ll describe how to import the toy models into the shop, how to change their size and orientation if needed, and how to make changes that weren’t made before.

1. To import a toy model, go to the main menu and choose File / Import.

2. Make sure you set Files of type (PC) or Format (Mac) to search for SketchUp models.

3. Browse to where the model is saved and find the one you want to import. I’m importing that first robot I saved from the 3D Warehouse. Click Open (PC) or Import (Mac).



The huge robot is now attached to my cursor, and the Move tool is active (you can tell because the cursor symbol is a double-arrow).

4. Click to place the robot anywhere. It becomes surrounded by a box, which means two things: the whole thing is a component (it is a single object that cannot be changed until it’s opened for editing). and it is selected.

5. To resize it, we’ll use the Scale tool. From the main menu, choose Tools / Scale, or just press the S key. Now the box around the robot has a bunch of green squares around it - these are called “drag handles.”



6. To shrink the robot, click one of the top corner drag handles. Corner handles are used to shrink an object uniformly, as opposed to changing just its width, height, etc.

7. Move the cursor until the robot looks like it’s the correct size to fit on the bottom shelf of the blue display case. Click again when finished.

The robot is a component, and I stated earlier that a component can’t be changed unless it is opened for editing. But there are some changes you can make to a component while it is “closed,” including moving, rotating, and scaling. For other changes, like erasing objects, adding objects, or changing colors, you do need to edit the component. Keep reading - an example of component editing will be shown in a few pages.

8. To place the robot on the shelf, we need to go back to the Move tool. You can click the Move icon, or just press the M key.



9. First the first move point, click a point on the bottom of the robot’s foot.

10. Then click on the bottom shelf. Oops, my robot is still a little too large.



11. So I’ll use the Scale tool to shrink the robot a little more.

What if you want a toy to face a different way? Not a problem. My next toy is an elephant, which is already pretty much toy-sized (so if this was supposed to a realistically-sized elephant, the modeler wasn’t very accurate!). I want this elephant on the bottom shelf next to the robot, facing toward the robot.

If you want to find this exact elephant, the author is “Altir Ego.” So you would enter this exact syntax in the search field: “elephant author:altir ego.”



As long as the Move tool is active, you can both move and rotate a component. If you move your cursor around the elephant, you will see four small, red “plus” signs appear on one of the box faces. These are rotation handles.

12. To spin the elephant around, move the cursor exactly over one of these rotation handles, on the top face. A protractor appears on your cursor.

13. Click once, move the mouse until the elephant is facing the direction you want, then click again.



14. Then move the elephant into place.

Here’s the blue display case after Student 1 places the rest of the robot / animal models:



Here’s the yellow display case after Student 2 imports and places the transportation models:

Now it’s Student 3’s turn. For the green table, a model for train tracks was imported, and the train itself came from a separate model.



For the red table, I found this building set:

The full name for the above model is “Close Studded Building Set.” I don’t think it’s meant to be a toy, but then again, neither were many of the models I chose. For instance, the train model is of an actual train.

15. This building set model looked fine when I downloaded it from the 3D Warehouse (after removing a few objects), but now that it’s resized and sitting on its display table, I think it has too many buildings. So we need to edit the component. Right-click on any part of the building set, and choose Edit Component from the popup menu.



The entire building set is now surrounded by a dotted-line box, and the rest of the toy shop appears faded in the background.

16. I used the Eraser to remove the buildings that are hanging past the edge of the table.

But here’s another thing I want to change: all of the buildings are facing the same way. It would look more natural if buildings were placed at random.

17. To turn different buildings to face different ways, you must first select what you want to rotate. So click the Select tool, or press the Spacebar.



18. Click the building you want to select.

19. Activate Move, and use one of the rotation handles at the top to turn the building.



20. I continued using the same steps: select a building, activate Move, spin the building, until the whole set looks rather random.

This is a good exercise for children who are obsessed with perfect order, alignment, symmetry etc; it encourages them to break out of this restriction.

21. When you’re finished with your changes, right-click anywhere outside the component and choose Close Component.



Now the rest of the toy shop returns to full view.

The rest of Student 3’s models consist of a large piano and guitar in the corner, as well as a big stuffed giraffe against the wall.



22. Here’s something cool that students like to play with: changing how the model is displayed. This is done by choosing Window / Styles, which opens the Styles window. Click the Edit tab, then right under the Edit tab, click the first icon in the row which controls Edge display.

23. One thing you can try is to turn off edges altogether (uncheck Display Edges and Profiles).

Try playing with the other options on this window to see other neat effects. But be warned; some of these effects may cause your model to perform slowly.

That’s it! Once the project is finished, the students can present a tour of the shop to other teachers or students, with each student explaining his or her own contributions.



If you want to download my completed toy shop model, filled with merchandise, search the 3D Warehouse for “filled toy shop.”And if you download this model, and want to save each individual toy as its own model, just right-click on each toy and choose Save As.

When you save a component this way, you can choose to save it with the scale it has in my shop model (click Yes) or you can save it with its original scale (click No).

Once you understand the basics of how to find models and insert them into other models, you can apply this to other project ideas. Some examples:

• Design the first floor of a house, with each student responsible for one room’s furniture.

• Design an amusement park, with students finding roller coasters, water rides, and food stands.

• Design an art museum for which students have to find particular paintings or sculptures.

• Design a dream classroom with objects students would really like to see, such as beanbag chairs, a popcorn machine, a Wii corner, etc.

• Design a zoo with each student finding different families of animals.

If you try this project, and have a fantastic model you’d like to share, please let me know! I will be happy to blog about it, and/or feature it in an upcoming newsletter. Contact [email protected].



Want to Learn More?

If you want more ideas for SketchUp projects, 3DVinci has many resources for students and teachers.

Our ModelMetricks series (http://www.3dvinci.net/ccp0-catshow/Kids.html) builds 3D design skills by way of fun and interesting projects.

Our GeomeTricks series (http://www.3dvinci.net/ccp0-catshow/GM.html) teaches important 2D and 3D geometric concepts, and prove that math can be fun!

And if you want to receive a steady stream of fun projects, check out our SketchUp Projects of the Month subscription! (http://www.3dvinci.net/ccp0-prodshow/POM.html)

collaboration and cooperation: building a toy shop in ... · 3dvinci and project spectrum asd...

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