Basic Toy Car in TinkerCAD

By the end of this instructable, you will have a completed model toy car in TinkerCAD

The design is inspired by my brother's Pinewood Derby car, which is made of just four wheels, four nails, and the wooden frame. Nothing too special in terms of appearance, but the construction showcases a lot of the various features TinkerCAD has to offer.

Step 1: Basic Controls

Before we begin, let's cover some things to know about working with TinkerCAD.

• Left click to select/deselect objects.
• Left click and drag a selected object to move it parallel to the workplane.
• Right click and drag to rotate your perspective around the center of the screen. Dragging the cube at the top left of the screen also accomplishes this.
• Middle click and drag to translate your perspective.
• Scroll to zoom in or out.
• Ctrl+Z to undo your last action, or the left arrow under the title of the project.
• Ctrl+Y to redo an undone action, or the right arrow under the title of the project.
• Ctrl+C to copy objects after selecting them.
• Ctrl+V to paste objects after copying them.
• Ctrl+D to duplicate objects, basically copying and pasting instantly.

Set the title of your project by left clicking the text to the right of the logo in the top left and typing in a title.

Step 2: Materials for the Body

After opening up TinkerCAD, you will see a list of shapes on the right side of the screen. These can be dragged into the work area. For the main body of the car, you will need:

• A Box
• A Cylinder
• A Roof
• A Round Roof

Step 3: Sizing the Box

Click on the box in the work area.

You will see some squares and arrows appear around the shape. By clicking and dragging the squares, you can stretch and squish the box into your desired dimensions. The black squares control width and depth independently, while the white squares on the lower corners control them at the same time. The white square in the center of the top face controls height.

To set each dimension to a specific size, you can drag each of the squares. Alternatively, for more precise construction, you can simply type in the desired length in the box that shows up after clicking the square.

For this project, you will need a 25 x 65 x 20 box.

Step 4: Sizing the Other Shapes

Size the cylinder, roof, and round roof like you did the box. Use the white squares to adjust each dimension appropriately.

For this project, you will need a:

• 25 x 49 x 25 cylinder
• 25 x 20 x 40 roof
• 25 x 53 x 16 round roof

Step 5: Rotating the Box

In addition to the white squares you use to adjust the dimensions of objects, you can also see three curved arrows. These are used to rotate the object in each of the three dimensions. When you hover over one of these arrows, a marked circle appears. There is also a red line that points to the top of the circle. Clicking on the arrow and dragging your cursor will rotate this red line around the circle, rotating the object with it.

If you drag your cursor within the circle, the red line will move between the inner tick marks, spaced 22.5° apart. If you drag your cursor outside the circle, the red line will move in increments of 1°. Alternatively, like with adjusting length, you can type in the white box that pops up to rotate to a specific amount

For this project, you will need to rotate the box 11° clockwise about the z-axis as shown in the picture.

Step 6: Rotating the Other Shapes

Rotate the other shapes like you did the box. Use the curved arrow to adjust the rotation appropriately.

For this project you will need to rotate the:

• Cylinder, 90° counterclockwise about the x-axis as shown
• Roof, 90° counterclockwise about the z-axis as shown

Step 7: Aligning the Objects

Now that you have all the objects correctly sized and oriented, it's time for alignment.

Highlight all of the objects and click the align button (second from the right on the toolbar, looks like a sideways bar graph). Click the middle left dot, as shown in the image above.

Click the Front view on the perspective cube. After you have done this, click the "Switch to flat view (Orthographic)" button, the lowest one to the left of the screen. All of your shapes should now appear two-dimensional.

Step 8: Aligning the Objects (pt. 2)

Now you need to arrange the shapes so that they look like the black car shape above (I changed the color to better show the edges. To change color, highlight the shapes, click the colored circle labeled "solid", and select a color). After selecting a shape, there will be an arrow above or below it that you can drag to translate the shape up and down. Here are some guidelines for proper alignment:

• For small adjustments, select the shape and use the arrow keys to move it left and right.
• If you want to move it at even smaller intervals, set the snap grid to something smaller, like 0.1mm. This can be achieved by selecting the dropdown menu in the lower right of the work area.
• To go back into perspective view, simply press the same button you used to enter orthographic view to toggle between the two.
• Try to keep the edge of the triangle tangent to the oval. It doesn't need to be exact, we will be trimming in the next step.
• The semioval will become the hood of the car. Move it however far to the left or right you desire.
• Note the intersection between the rectangle, the oval, and the semioval. Try to align the shapes so that they all cross at a point like in the image.

Step 9: Trimming the Objects

Our car shape is almost finished now. All that's left is to trim off the excess bits using "hole" shapes. At the top of the shapes menu, there is a gray striped box and cylinder. These are hole shapes. When a hole overlaps an object, it removes the bounded volume from it.

Click the Workplane tool close to the top right of the screen. Once selected, it can be placed on any surface of an object. Place the workplane on the underside of the round roof (you don't have to be in orthographic view anymore). Drag out a box hole from the shapes menu, it will now be snapped onto the new workplane. Make it wide enough to flatten out the bottom of the car, as shown in the image.

Select the workplane tool again and move it onto the top surface of the roof. Place a box hole on the workplane and adjust it so that it completely covers any excess sticking out above the workplane form the cylinder.

Select the workplane one last time and drop it anywhere in the background, not on the object. This will set the workplane back to its default position. Place down another box hole and rotate it 11° counterclockwise. Using the image as a reference, move it over and up so that it completely covers the back side of the car and results in a clean diagonal cut.

Make sure each hole is wide enough to cover the whole car.

Step 10: Grouping the Objects

Last step before we start making the wheels.

Highlight everything and click the group button. It is fourth from the right on the toolbar, to the right of the lightbulb. Alternatively, you could press Ctrl+G, which does the same thing. Grouping a set of objects combines them into one single object. All highlighted holes will act as negative space and remove volume it shares with any other object. In our case, the holes will remove and protruding sides and add a slant to the back of the car.

Step 11: Sizing the Wheel

Time to work on the wheels of our car. Drag the finished body of the car somewhere off to the side so that it doesn't get in the way.

The wheel design consists of the tire itself and a nail to keep it attached to the car. For this part of the project, you will need a:

• 20 x 20 x 4 black cylinder
• 2 x 2 x 0.5 grey cylinder
• 1 x 1 x 10 grey cylinder

I used the grey on the bottom row, second from the right on the color selection menu.

Step 12: Creating the Wheel

Next, we need to form and insert the nail into the tire. By now, you should be familiar with all of the actions you are going to perform in order to accomplish this.

Align the nail so that the center axes of the grey cylinders line up, then group them together. Rotate it 180° so the head of the nail is above the shank. Align the nail and tire so their center axes line up. Finally, move the nail 5.5mm vertically into the tire.

Step 13: Spacing the Wheels

Before we attach the wheels to the car, we need to make a total of four wheels, properly spaced. Select the whole wheel and rotate it 180° so that the nail lies parallel to the workplane.

Select the Ruler tool (next to the Workplane tool) and place it down in the work area. It will look like a coordinate plane with some tick marks on both axes. Clicking the button with an X on it will remove the ruler. Hover over the button with three lines on it. If it reads Use Midpoint, you are currently in Use Endpoint mode and vice versa.

Duplicate the entire wheel and rotate it so that its nail points towards the other wheel, as shown in the image above. Highlight the wheel that points away from the ruler. Notice that there are three blue and two green arrows. The blue arrows measure length in the three dimensions like normal. The green arrows measure distance from the origin to either the midpoint of endpoint of the object, depending on what mode you are in (Technically there are three green arrows, the vertical one has zero length because the wheel is level with the ruler).

Make sure you are in Use Endpoint mode. Move the wheel so that all of the green arrows have zero length, in line with both of the axes. Alternatively, you could set the distance in the corresponding text box next to an arrow. Select the other wheel. Move it so that its horizontal arrow has zero length and the depth arrow has a length of 27. Highlight both wheels and group them, then select the Multicolor option in the color menu.

Step 14: Aligning the Wheels

We have the body and one pair of wheels. All that's left is to duplicate and attach the wheels to the car.

Duplicate your pair of wheels and move the copy to the right. How far right is up to personal preference, I find 65mm right to be perfect for me. Now select the body of the car. Move it 15mm left and 6mm deep from the origin of the ruler, then raise it 4mm up from the workplane as shown in the image. Of course, you can move the wheels around if you don't like the placement I suggest.

Remove the ruler once you are done.

Step 15: Finalizing the Car

You are basically finished with your model car. Congratulations!

Here are some optional things you can do to add some personality to your car:

• Change the color of the car.
• Add objects (roofs, cones, hemispheres) on top of the car.
• Using the workplane tool, add boxes to the front or back of the car as headlights or taillights
• Using the workplane tool, add text to the side of the car

Once you are done with customizations, group the whole thing together. You are done!