Teaching QCAD

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ryancousins
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Teaching QCAD

Post by ryancousins » Fri Oct 15, 2021 3:44 pm

Last year, I had the chance to try out QCAD with some high school students, however, we were fully virtual due to the pandemic. The vast majority of my students do not have PCs at home and only had their school-issued Chromebooks. I was able to use the community version of QCAD on rollapp.com and it worked okay considering. But thankfully I now have the educational site license for QCAD Pro and have it installed in my computer lab. I've collected all of the manual drafting gear we've been using so far this semester, and I'm excited to now introduce this awesome program to my students as they try out CAD for the first time!
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petevick
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Re: Teaching QCAD

Post by petevick » Fri Oct 15, 2021 4:06 pm

Wow, that's pretty awesome, they are very lucky students to have that kind of access, and also to have such an enthusiastic tutor as yourself e_geek e_geek
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ryancousins
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Re: Teaching QCAD

Post by ryancousins » Fri Oct 15, 2021 4:16 pm

Thanks for the kind words. Sadly my students will not share in my enthusiasm as learning the program will require them to put forth effort, which they are rather averse to. But I know I will have a few that will think it's pretty cool, so that makes it worth it. :D

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J-J
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Re: Teaching QCAD

Post by J-J » Fri Oct 15, 2021 9:45 pm

Students to-day do not how lucky they are. I learned drafting with a wood board, a T and a couple squares, and yet I enjoyed it. It was quite rewarding to produce a nice looking drawing with just pencils or china ink. In addition to learning the technicalities of mechanical engineering, you also learned how to make your sheet look nice and clean. Nowadays, drawings always look nice as they are made with a printer!...
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andrew
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Re: Teaching QCAD

Post by andrew » Sat Oct 16, 2021 11:16 am

Looks really cool, thank you for posting this!

Only a small percentage of students will ever be interested in CAD, but it's worth it. I also first started with CAD thanks to an enthusiastic teacher back in the early 90ies.

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ryancousins
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Re: Teaching QCAD

Post by ryancousins » Sat Oct 16, 2021 5:36 pm

J-J wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 9:45 pm
Students to-day do not how lucky they are. I learned drafting with a wood board, a T and a couple squares, and yet I enjoyed it.
I start my kids out on drafting desks with a T-Square, a couple triangles, and a few other tools. I think it's really important to start with that tangible skill of drawing everything out by hand, even if it's not done much anymore "in the real world". I find it useful to start out with them drawing simple shapes at a 1:1 scale, then introduce them to 1:2 and 2:1 scale while on paper so they see why we do that and how it works. I think this will set them up better once we hop into QCAD, where the idea of scale if first lost on them. Plus, the kids spend so much time with screens these days, I think there is something almost therapeutic about slowing down and taking your time to create something by hand.

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ryancousins
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Re: Teaching QCAD

Post by ryancousins » Sat Oct 16, 2021 5:40 pm

andrew wrote:
Sat Oct 16, 2021 11:16 am
Looks really cool, thank you for posting this!

Only a small percentage of students will ever be interested in CAD, but it's worth it. I also first started with CAD thanks to an enthusiastic teacher back in the early 90ies.
I was the same way. I had a drafting teacher in the 90s that taught us on paper, and then moved us to CADKey 7 on DOS. In comparison they're going to spoiled with QCAD! The ability to create and edit with such precision is so enjoyable. I know I will have at least a few kids that will enjoy it and they will hopefully walk away with a few skills and a mindset that will help them if they move into jobs in the trades or engineering.

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J-J
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Re: Teaching QCAD

Post by J-J » Sat Oct 16, 2021 6:32 pm

I think there is something almost therapeutic about slowing down and taking your time to create something by hand.
Can't agree with you more! Same goes for machining, one ought to build a part with a conventional lathe or milling machine before going digital, you have to get a feel of the material to understand what you can achieve with it.
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FBXL5
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Re: Teaching QCAD

Post by FBXL5 » Sat Oct 23, 2021 2:27 pm

First:
GREAT JOB with the setup and teaching.

I will echo what was said previous; you are giving these students an invaluable opportunity whose value can only be measured by time and the student's achievements later on.

Second:
If I may offer a few Suggestions from a lifelong Designer/Drafter board and PC:
(Also please understand, I only say these things because I need to know I said them NOT because you are not already doing it, which you probably are! [since I have not seen your syllabus])

In CAD in Model Space ALWAYS draw in FULL SCALE 1:1.

In CAD in Paperspace You can make the "Windows" in the scale you wish.

In CAD put text and dimensions on PAPER SPACE always.

These are just a few lessons I have learned over the years and they seem to work for me.

If there is any way I can contribute to your work, please let me know.

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ryancousins
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Re: Teaching QCAD

Post by ryancousins » Mon Oct 25, 2021 12:41 pm

FBXL5 wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 2:27 pm
First:
GREAT JOB with the setup and teaching.
Thanks, FBXL5!

I'd like to know more about your thoughts regarding dimensioning in paper space. I always model 1:1 of course, and I will often do notes/annotations in paperspace, but I've always done the dimensions in model space. I am not a professional draftsman whatsoever so I'd love to hear your thoughts about this.

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Re: Teaching QCAD

Post by Sam » Sun Oct 31, 2021 11:17 am

Hello FBXL5
I would also like to know what advantages the dimensioning in the paper room has.
Or how do other people do that?
Thank you.

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Husky
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Re: Teaching QCAD

Post by Husky » Sun Oct 31, 2021 10:04 pm

FBXL5 wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 2:27 pm
In CAD put text and dimensions on PAPER SPACE always.
ryancousins wrote:
Mon Oct 25, 2021 12:41 pm
I'd like to know more about your thoughts regarding dimensioning in paper space.
Sam wrote:
Sun Oct 31, 2021 11:17 am
I would also like to know what advantages the dimensioning in the paper room has.
Here my two cents on that statement.

He is right .... well, it makes cense ... hmmmm depending on the situation - or in short: A Double-edged sword! :lol:

This all goes back to your ability to control dimension and text heights. Note: Your Drawing Preferences set for Dimensioning are global. If you change the text height for dimensions to 0.14" then every dim in Model_Space (1:1) is 0.14". So far so good. If you create now a Viewport which has to be placed in Paper_Space then you can apply a scale - let say 1:10 - which will scale everything what is covered by that Viewport. If the Viewport covers Dims there are scaled too what makes them to have an actual text size of 0.014" when printed. NOT GOOD! Here comes now the Double-edged sword: If you have e.g. 5 Viewports in Paper_Space and all of them have the same scale then it is easy to adjust Drawing Preferences for a proper text hight of the dims. Just write in 1.4 and it will work!
But .... If you have 5 Viewports with DIFFERENT scales (like 1:1, 1:25, 1:50 etc.) then you can't control anymore DIMs global in Model_Space and you need to do the Dims in Paper_Space.
What is different if I do dims in Paper_Space? QCAD has an genius option to activate "Auto" for dims.

Husky-2021.10.31-02.png
Husky-2021.10.31-02.png (6.74 KiB) Viewed 9462 times

If that "Auto" is ticked QCAD will scale by itself regarding to the scale of the Viewport you are working on!!! Is your Dim Text Hight in Drawing Preferences is set to 0.14 and you dim a Viewport which is scaled 1:10 then QCAD will use this gathered information to scale the dim 10 times bigger then the rest of the Viewport. Hmmm, where is this smoke coming from? Oh I see .... it's my brain!

Just test it for yourself - it's much easier then it sounds like in writing form ... :lol: :lol: :lol:
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ryancousins
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Re: Teaching QCAD

Post by ryancousins » Mon Nov 01, 2021 11:47 am

This is is definitely a good reason to dimension in paperspace. I haven't needed different scale viewports yet in a layout but if I did I will follow this advice!

When you talk about having different scales for each viewport, are you changing each viewport's scale in the property editor? It doesn't let me enter ratio values such as 1:10, 1:25, and so on. I can put those in the dropdown in the options bar when in a print layout, but that affects all viewports and blocks placed in that layout. I haven't starting doing these things with my students quite yet but I feel like when the time comes (soon!), I will have two options, each with a pro and a con:

Option 1: After placing the viewport on the layout, change the overall scale using the main, top dropdown as needed, for instance, to 1:2. But then they will have to go in and change the scale of their title block to 2:1 to compensate.

Option 2: Only change the scale of the viewport using the property editor. Since they can't put in a ratio in this field, they would have to put in a value of 1/2 or .5 in place of 1:2. But then they don't have to change the scale of their title block. Not being able to enter a ratio is not a concern for me personally, but I will just have to explain to my students how to convert things to just enter the quotient rather than a ratio.
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CVH
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Re: Teaching QCAD

Post by CVH » Mon Nov 01, 2021 12:26 pm

ryancousins wrote:
Mon Nov 01, 2021 11:47 am
It doesn't let me enter ratio values such as 1:10, 1:25, and so on.
Try a simple division ... Property Editor fields are RMathLineEdit fields that accept equations.

Regards,
CVH

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Re: Teaching QCAD

Post by ryancousins » Mon Nov 01, 2021 12:44 pm

CVH wrote:
Mon Nov 01, 2021 12:26 pm


Try a simple division ... Property Editor fields are RMathLineEdit fields that accept equations.

Regards,
CVH
That is what I do and for my own use it is totally fine and I wouldn't have given it a second thought. But when I explain steps to my students, everything has to be really explicit. But I think most of them should be able to figure this out. Some of them really struggle with math!

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