How to Make a 3D Structure of Atom With Tinkercad

As being a High School teacher I feel it's important that every student visualizes and understands the basic structure of an Atom. It is the basic building block of universe. But, it's a complex structure. A 3D model of an atom will help students understand Atom's structure and characteristics better. As we know Tinkercad is a user-friendly and simple 3D modelling software, today's tutorial will be built on it.

I will even attach the file of the 3D model below so that teachers who want to give their students a real live perspective of the atomic structure can just print it for their class.

So let's get started!

Supplies

Computer
Tinkercad

Making the Nucleus

As we know nucleus is the center of the atom, just like sun in the solar system. So to make the nucleus we can start by taking a sphere from the Tinkercad library and position it in the center of the workplane. Lift the atom to around 50-75 units in order to make space for electrons and other parts of the structure.

As we know there are many types of atomic models we will be sticking with the one given by Bohr today.

Adding the Orbit

Select a ring(torus) from the Tinkercad Library and drag it onto the workspace. Make sure that u increase the radius of the ring, in my case I went for 12.16, you can choose yours as per your preferences and atom you are trying to replicate. Now, let's increase the height of the ring to level it up with the nucleus we already added. Make sure that they both are in the same line. So this ring now will act as an orbit (circular path for electrons which revolve around the nuclei).

Adding More Orbits

As we've created an orbit already, we can duplicate it and change it's orientation and axis to create more orbits. So select the previous orbit, use the duplicate option or ctrl+D (cmd+D) to duplicate the orbit and click on the curved arrow to rotate the orbit. I choose 45 and 135 degrees to preserve the symmetry of atom. Now as we made the paths for the electrons to revolve, we now need to add some electrons to them.

Adding Electron to the Orbits

Similar to process we followed for the nuclei, we can use a sphere from the shape library to act as an electron. Drag a sphere onto the workplane, level it with the orbit just as we did for the nucleus. Now position it on the orbit.

Adding More Electrons

Again we can duplicate the electrons as before to make our task easy and save some time. Repeat this process with all the orbits. Make sure that the electrons are placed on the orbit.

Colourifying the Structure

Now it's time to add some bright colors to our atomic structure and make it more attractive and aesthetic, I preferred to use bright yellow for the nucleus and red for the electrons, you can choose it as per your wish.

Woohoo! we just made our atomic structure in less than 10 mins. How cool is that?, if you made a similar one share your work with the community by clicking on the I Made It! button below. So that's it for tonight, hope you enjoyed this instructable!