3D Skills

Finishing my final design project and this course has been a huge learning experience. When we started, I was honestly a little overwhelmed by the idea of modeling a car in Autodesk Maya, but now I’m really proud of what I accomplished. I was able to create the car’s body, wheels, headlights, and small details like the mirrors and door handles. Learning tools like extrude and bevel helped me make everything look smooth and realistic.

One of the hardest parts was making sure both sides of the car were symmetrical and getting the curves to look natural. There were times when parts of the car looked blocky, and it took a lot of trial and error to fix that. With feedback from my teacher, tutorials, and practice, I learned how to use edge loops and smoothing to improve the design.

The final project really taught me patience and how important it is to plan ahead. I’m most proud of how the car turned out overall, but if I had more time, I would focus more on the interior details and adding textures to make it look even more realistic.

This course has helped me get better at 3D modeling and made me a lot more confident in my design skills. The skill-building projects earlier in the course taught me the basics, which I used to tackle the final project. At first, managing my time was tough, but I learned to set small goals to stay on track and keep making progress.

The best part of this course was seeing my work come together and realizing how much I enjoy design. I’m now excited to take on more challenging projects in the future, and I feel like I have a strong foundation to keep learning and improving. This course showed me what I can achieve with focus and hard work, and it’s made me even more interested in pursuing design.

Maya Basic Primitive Model - 8/23

Maya Basic Head - 8/27

TSA - 9/3

Choose TWO competitions that you would want to do if you were to join TSA . . .

https://tsaweb.org/

Children's Stories

In response to the annual theme, participants create an illustrated children’s story of artistic, instructional, and social value, and submit documentation related to the development of the physical storybook. Semifinalists read their story aloud and participate in an interview.

Children’s Stories

Theme: Students develop and produce a non-fiction, die-cut board book

Animatronics

To address the annual design challenge, participants exhibit and demonstrate their knowledge of mechanical and control systems by creating an animatronic device with a specific purpose (i.e., communicate an idea, entertain, demonstrate a concept, etc.) that includes sound, lights, and an appropriate surrounding environment (a display).

Animatronics

“Time Travelers’ Museum”

Design Problem: Create an animatronic figure or scene from a key moment in American history. The character should "come to life" to explain their world to a young audience. Designed for a children's museum or educational tour.