On TooTallToby.com, a passionate community of CAD enthusiasts are pushing themselves to be better modelers—and having fun along the way.
3… 2… 1… CAD battle!
An engineering drawing is revealed on screen. It shows several views of a simple connector arm, dotted with dimensions and a few helpful annotations known as “Toby notes.” The drawing has a Tier 3 complexity rating.
On opposite sides of the planet, two CAD modelers instantly start making a 3D model of the part. One is using Alibre, the other Solidworks. For these seasoned experts, the modeling is easy. It’s the pressure that’s hard. They’re live on stream before an audience of CAD enthusiasts, trying to tune out their host’s play-by-play commentary and finish the 3D model as fast as they can.
“ChrisBCo coming in with an answer… 0.654…” The voice belongs to Toby Schnaars, known to his audience as Too Tall Toby. A charismatic CAD expert, he’ll determine who wins the battle by correctly providing the model’s mass. The model, like the competition itself, is his creation.
A dramatic pause, and then, “That is not correct!”
The Australian Solidworks user named ChrisBCo gets only one more chance to answer. He can see that his opponent, an Alibre user from Greece named ExMachina, is nearly finished the part. One way or another, this will be over soon.
Suddenly, ChrisBCo spots the mistake in his model—one wrong dimension. He makes the change and stabs 0.687 into the chat just seconds before ExMachina enters his guess.
“And that is correct!” Schnaars announces to the sound effects of a cheering crowd. With this win, ChrisBCo takes the set of three CAD battles and secures his spot in the quarterfinals. He’s one step closer to winning the 2024 World Championship of 3D CAD Speed Modeling.
***
How fast can you CAD?
Maybe you’ve never thought of it, or cared. Perhaps the idea of speed modeling seems silly for a professional 3D modeler. Or worse—perhaps you think focusing on CAD speed would promote bad habits and sloppy design.
You wouldn’t be alone in thinking those things, but you wouldn’t be right, either. The truth is that speed modeling can greatly benefit your 3D design skills, even if you’re already an experienced modeler.
To see how, look no further than TooTallToby.com. Founded by Toby Schnaars in 2022, the site unites CAD modelers from around the world, using dozens of different CAD systems, around an intriguing premise: the gamification of 3D CAD.
There are challenges, livestreams and competitions. There are points, leaderboards and prizes. But even though it looks like a game of speed, TooTallToby.com isn’t really about being fast. By turning CAD into a game, Schnaars aims to make the players better designers. And you’d be surprised how well it’s working.
The gamification of 3D CAD
Schnaars has deep CAD experience. He’s a Solidworks master, certified at the highest level with both a CSWE and Elite AE. Before founding TooTallToby.com, Schnaars supported Solidworks users both for reseller Prism Engineering and developer Dassault Systèmes. In those roles he resolved over 10,000 support cases and taught more than 200 classes.
As an instructor, there was one question Schnaars heard over and over. Which CAD system was the best? 3D modelers certainly have a long list of options. Was Solidworks more efficient than Inventor? Did Catia have an edge over Solid Edge? Was Fusion or NX the key to success?
The question, Schnaars felt, was misguided. He believes the CAD program is much less important than the person using it. Being a master modeler is about honing the fundamentals, such as building a robust feature tree and effectively navigating a user interface.
“The users who are able to really master those workflows are going to be able to go from a napkin sketch to a 3D model faster than anybody else,” Schnaars said. “Regardless of what CAD system they’re using.”
Schnaars envisioned a “Royal Rumble” of CAD, a race among a group of designers to make the same 3D model at the same time using whatever CAD system they preferred. Not only would this showcase that the designer, not the CAD program, was the important variable—it also sounded like good fun.
That vision meshed with another problem Schnaars had noticed with CAD education. If you want to develop CAD skills, you have a few options. You could take a structured training class, such as the kind Schnaars himself had taught. Or you could take a DIY approach, sifting through YouTube videos piecemeal to build up a repertoire of skills.
Schnaars felt there was a missing piece in CAD pedagogy. He discussed his ideas with Guy Rotheram, a colleague and fellow CAD expert who shared Schnaars’ passion for gaming and technology.
“Toby and I… thought that if we could introduce the concept of gamification into the education process for CAD, then we probably had something that would really spark an interest and provide a valuable service to the broader community… all the way from hobbyists to professional engineers,” Rotheram said.
In 2022, Schnaars, Rotheram, and Schnaars’ wife Vicki Chong launched TooTallToby.com. It would test their ideas for gamifying CAD education while building on Schnaars’ existing online presence as a CAD instructor.
They didn’t have to wait long for interest to be sparked.
Read the rest of this story at ENGINEERING.com
