Simple Button

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

Project Overview:

This is a series of fun beginner level lessons to hone your awesome Tinkercad skills and get you started printing 3D models.

A button is a simple, unassuming, almost forgettable thing.

But look at them! These tiny, functional artifacts have been used by humans for thousands of years and they are every bit as varied as the people who have made them.

In this fun and easy lesson, you will begin your design journey by creating a basic, yet very functional, custom button. Once you've made one, there's nothing stopping you from making a different button for every button hole!

Let's get started!

Instructions

1. Continue to the next step.

Begin by dragging out a cylinder from the geometric shapes in the Shapes Menu.

Instructions

1. Drag out a cylinder to the workplane.
2. Click on the Z axis scaling handle at the top of the shape and scale it down to 3 mm.
3. Continue to the next step.

A button is not very useful unless you can attach it to something. To do this, you need holes. Four is usual.

Instructions

1. Drag out a cylinder to the workplane.
2. Hold down shift and grab one of the scale handles to proportionally scale the cylinder to 3mm in diameter.
3. Click the hole property in the inspector menu.
4. Duplicate the original hole and nudge (move) this duplicate 7mm to the right.
5. Select both cylinders and click the group button.
6. Continue to the next step.

Now let's move this group of holes on to the button. The Align tool will put these holes in the center for you.

Instructions

1. Select the group of holes and the button body.
2. Using the align tool, center your holes to your button base.
3. Continue to the next step.

Now, let's make the final two holes. Just duplicate your original objects and rotate them. Reusing existing objects and groups is a powerful way to quickly make new things.

Instructions

1. Deselect the button base so that only your original hole group is selected.
2. Duplicate your hole group and rotate the duplicate 90° around. the Z axis
3. Select all of your shapes and group them.
4. Continue to the next step.

In the next lesson you will learn to make a custom stamp!

Next Lesson: Make a Trick Die