Designing Glider aircrafts on Fusion 360

When I was originally thinking about what I wanted to do for personal project, the idea of designing something with a 3d design software came to mind. This originally came when I learned about 3d modelling a couple years ago on a course I took it, taught me the fundamentals of 3d printing and how these objects were modelled digitally, I’ve long forgotten how to do it by now. Since then, it was something in the back and my head and a skill I wanted to have but never having the motivation to do it. So when personal project came along I decided to use this opportunity and learn 3d modelling. Similarly, another thing I’ve always been fascinated by is engineering and the idea of flight. I’m not sure where this came from but I liked to just read about different types of planes and watched vids on youtube about its history and how famous aircraft were engineered. I often enrolled on courses to learn more about the mechanics of flight and gain more insight into the world of aeronautics. Many of the videos I’ve watched include 3d renders of vehicles and was something that I also wanted to learn to do. I’ve actually learned some basic mechanics of 3d designing and modelling on blender, but from my research blender is known to be more intuitive and more on the artistic side, in other words its not really designed to be used as a professional workspace. My other choice is fusion 360, I’ve also used fusion 360 in the past but when I say used what I really mean is I made a cube and called it a day. Fusion 360 is more professionally orientated and more likely to be used when actually designing as it was designed to be used commercially and has a much lengthier learning process. I also think that learning to 3d design will be a useful skill to me in the future as digital modelling and designing has become quite popular recently and it’ll help increase my chances for future universities and career options. Also, I often like to paint on canvas and digitally, and since 3d modelling is considered a form of art I figured I might as well expand my artistic skillset on that front. In conclusion, my learning goal would be to learn how to design and model on fusion 360.

Product Goal

Given that my learning goal was to learn how to use Fusion 360, my product goal would of course be to design something with it. My first thought was to design an aircraft to also incorporate my interest in aviation. I wasn’t sure what kind or if I should try to replicate an existing aircraft or design my own original one. After considering, if I chose to replicate an existing aircraft, I doubt there’d be much creativity in the process so I decided to just try and make my own and see how far I can stretch my imagination. At first designing a passenger plane sounds fun, but then I realized if I wanted to make it look somewhat realistic, I’d have to give thought towards balance and engine design and whatnot, so I just decided to design a glider. A glider doesn’t need engines as its main purpose is just to glide, and I’m more interested in the aerodynamic shape and the way it generates lift through its wings instead of the process that takes place in the engine.

Reflection

My personal product was about 3D modeling using Fusion 360. My product goal was to design a glider aircraft model without copying an existing glider design. Of course, in order to model a glider in fusion 360, I had to learn how to model in the first place. My learning goal was to learn how to model on fusion 360. To do this, I had to learn the mechanics and techniques in fusion 360. I followed a 30-day tutorial that taught me how to model multiple different objects in fusion and gave me first hand experience in 3d modeling. I chose this tutorial specifically because it was one of the better tutorials that I found after having found the autodesk tutorials to be insufficient. I spent most of my time working on the project during the break as I could just focus on it instead of having to worry about school. Even then I spent most of it working on the learning goal as learning how to use fusion in the first place was the most arduous part of my project as it included learning how to model 20+ different objects. To complete this stage of my personal product, I came up with a schedule where I would learn to model a different object each day. However, as the due date for the product came closer I realized I would have to speed up my progress and had to learn 3 objects in a day so that I would have sufficient time to work on the product itself. Doing this improved my organization skills as I had to manage my time well since I didn’t have that much time left. During this process, I slowly realized that as I watched more videos I was remembering what each of fusion’s mechanics were and predicted what tools were going to be used to model the object. After having finished the tutorial and learning most of fusion’s modelling mechanics, I set to work on my product goal. Compared to the amount of objects I had to model as part of my learning goal, I realized that just making my product goal would not take long as I could just design the whole glider in the sculpt workspace and create a singular form instead of needing to combine several different mechanics in an assembly. This showed the power of transfer skills, it made the task of making my product seem relatively light after having learnt how to use the software and experience in modeling other things. I managed to finish my product in just a couple weeks and decided to make a second glider model to explore different designs. I’d say finishing this personal project felt a bit like reluctantly learning something that I’ve wanted to learn but not having the motivation to do so in the past. I did learn a lot about fusion 360 and its comparison to blender which I’ve also used. Fusion feels much slower and specific, its workspace is designed with precise engineering in mind and doesn’t allow much freedom in designs, whereas blender is more free flowing and smooth; its designs aren’t as limited/restricted as fusion and its more intuitive and easy to learn, it's designed with artists and hobbyists in mind. This project did help me learn further about 3D modelling, with it I could keep practicing and model other objects as a hobby of sorts. I also did it because it seemed useful since I had an interest in engineering and knowing how to 3d model could be useful academically.

Product Evaluation

I think in terms of achieving what I wanted to achieve, the product was a success. The goal was to design/model a glider without copying the designs of existing gliders. However, I could have added more to the design and had a more extensive design process which would allow me to better design the models. I modeled the planes all using the form environment in order to save time. While this is a good idea for getting out the general design and shape of the plane, further details that could be added such as filling out the inside of the cabin or adding wheels could have been done using other tools.