Introduction: Manual Design Vs. Program Design

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The following information is a single lesson in a larger Tinkercad project. Check out this and more projects on Tinkercad.

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Lesson Overview:

Now we're going to learn the difference between manual and program design.

Step 1: Manually Building the House

Building a simple house manually in Tinkercad takes only a few steps, but if you are repeating those steps over and over it can become time consuming.

Below are images that show the manual process for creating a house that were followed in the Tinkercad project.

  1. Create an outer block that represents the outside of the house
  2. Create an inner block to remove the center of the house structure
  3. Subtract the inner block from the outer block
  4. Place a roof on the structure
  5. Combine the roof with the walls

Note:

These steps to manually build a house are fully detailed in the Build a Tinkercad House project. If you are unsure how to manually build the house you should consider completing the Build a Tinkercad House project to better understand how the shapes are combined to create the house.

Instructions

  1. Continue to the next step.

Step 2: Pseudo Code - Manual Design Vs. Program Design

Design and coding have many similarities in the way by which you visualize how to get your ideas out of your head and into the computer. When determining how best to build a house manually in Tinkercad, it is helpful to visualize the components that make up the overall shape and also to consider how each item will be combined and in what order; essentially pseudo code for manual design.

The pseudo code for this design would look like this:

  1. Create a block that represents the outer walls of the house. (the red block in the image)
  2. Create a block smaller than the red block that can be used to hollow out the inside of the red block. (the transparent block in the image)
  3. Create a roof block that can be placed on top of the house. (the green block in the image)
  4. Position the transparent block in the center of the red block.
  5. Position the roof centered on the top of the red block.
  6. Hollow the house by subtracting the inner block from the outer block
  7. Combine the roof to the walls.

As you can see, this pseudo code could be used for either the manual design or for the program to create the configurable house.

In the next lesson you will learn to set up parameters for the house design.

Next Lesson:Setting Up Parameters for the House