3D Design

Originally, for my 3D Design assignment, I asked Richard for permission to create a 3D floor plan of the classrooms I visited for field observations. This proved a little too difficult for me as a beginner in Tinkercad, and it felt intimidating and a bit overwhelming to learn another platform like SketchUp. So I ended up using Tinkercad to design a forsythia pendant for a necklace. 

Why Forsythia? Over Easter weekend, I was in the car with family when my aunt pointed out all the bright yellow bushes growing in the yards we passed by. She called the flowers forsythia. I was gobsmacked. "Forsythia!?" I thought, "No way." 

Image credit: PxHere

For years, I've enjoyed listening to a song titled "Forsythia" by the band Veruca Salt. I often listen to this song and others from the same album while sitting near my bedroom window. Outside that very window, four forsythia shrubs grow. Somehow, for at least nine years of my life, I've listened to "Forsythia" while sitting next to forsythia without realizing. Maybe the plants knew this whole time and have been sending messages to my subconscious so I'd play the song over and over. Actually, this is probably true because I am writing this right now near my bedroom window while listening to "Forsythia," and I designed my pendant earlier today from the same spot! As the lyrics go, "One thing about Forsythia, she comes around, and I get lost. Against her yellow, I'm no longer me." My eyes must be yellow now. 

It was to appease the plants and heal my forsythia fever that I decided to design a forsythia pendant for this assignment. At first, the process was a bit frustrating. The way Tinkercad has users move around the workspace using the cube in the top-left was irritating, but as I continued working, it became easier to navigate. To create my pendant, I grouped, cut, combined, copied, and pasted multiple shapes to get my finished result. Ideally, the hole for the necklace chain would be towards the bottom tip of the flower, but Tinkercad wouldn't let me put one there, despite how many things I tried. Overall, though, I am happy with my forsythia pendant as my first independent Tinkercad creation! I think the forsythia is happy, too, though they might make me 3D-print and paint it one day...