Unleash creativity with CADthinkers! Our program, tailored for students aged 6-10, combines engaging CAD lessons, real-world challenges, and a 3D Printing Studio. Whether through portable trolleys at your school or local Montessori chapters, CADthinkers transforms students into makers and problem-solvers. Join us on this dynamic CADventure—where every design is a step toward innovation!
Looking up at a cloud, some might try to decipher a weather report for the next couple of hours of the day. Others may look up and try to identify the types of clouds present, based on their standardized definitions. Many of us don't even take the time to look up from our bustling daily schedules. However, a select few look up at the sky and think of a floating island, flooded to its edges with gold from a pirate's treasure trove. Or, instead, they might see a kingdom floating up in the sky, with large mythical creatures protecting its gates. These select few are those untouched by the harrowing hustle of our adult and teenage lives. They are young students, willing to take leaps in their imagination without being afraid to fall. They are the first to try something new, and the last to give up. They are the CADthinkers. These young innovators have the brilliant ability to not only think outside of the box, but also bring a fresh perspective to issues that have plagued our society for decades, whether it's pollution, unwalkable cities, or structural incapabilities. If these issues are presented in a simple, understandable way, and the correct tools are given to our students to innovate efficient solutions, the possibilities for innovation are endless. Within his book, Lifelong Kindergarten, Mitchel Resnik, the creator of Scratch, expresses that "most schools in most countries place a higher priority on teaching students to follow instructions and rules (becoming A students) than on helping students develop their own ideas, goals, and strategies." His book further details the importance of having a playful, creative, and supportive environment to innovate, echoing the fundamental virtues that CADthinkers establishes right here in Dallas.
There have been countless instances of student innovations solving the issues that have stumped society for decades. Here are just a few of those examples:
CADthinkers aims to provide a nurturing environment for our student inventors, peaking their interest with superhero missions, alien invasions, and fairytale stories that mirror real-world challenges. For example, a CADthinkers lesson in early January 2024, takes students through an engaging storyboard lesson, introducing the effects of pollution on urban landscapes portrayed by figurative villains symbolizing common pollution side effects. The students will be challenged to create garden landscapes or their own solutions to defeat these pollution monsters. They can design their solutions in TinkerCAD, a kid-friendly CAD program, and have them 3D printed, tangible for the students to keep by the next lesson. By allowing these students to learn high-level skills such as computer-aided design and 3D printing, they will be able to apply the critical thinking and problem-solving skills that CADthinkers fosters. As the students become more advanced with computer-aided design systems, our program grows with them, using more complicated programs, offering more challenging issues to solve, and growing their involvement with local competitions. CADthinkers aims to keep students' spirits of creativity and imagination thriving, as their school lives, transitioning from elementary to middle school, often become more dull and memorization-based. By creating a habit out of creativity for our students, CADthinkers hopes to encourage our future engineers, doctors, architects, and artists.
CADthinkers is currently looking for high school volunteers and adult mentors. As the organization grows, its efforts in creating a passionate community around innovation won't stop at our elementary and middle school students. By involving high schoolers in building an organization and aiding our students in their engineering journeys, CADthinkers' cause becomes all the more meaningful. If you are interested, please email info.cadthinkers@gmail.com, or navigate to the following link.