Simplified toolbars for elementary level students

by Dave Weidkamp

Apr 30, 2018

I have been having a discussion with John Niebergal and others about having a simplified version of Rhino.  One that has most of the toolbars striped out and just focus on 2D Drafting tools.

The Genesis of the idea: 

I did a project with my daughters 3rd grade class where the students designed a zoo and calculated the area and perimeter of their enclosures .  We modified the Rhino interface so they had only 5 icons -- all the rest were gone -- so as to not confuse them.

This developed into the idea of having a set of toolbars for 2D drafting, and editing tools.

Here is what I came up with:

drafting%202D.rui

2D%20Editing.rui

2D%20Text.rui

Then I modified the commands and added a Python script to many of the icons to control which layer the geometry , text, hatching, and dimensions go onto automatically.  So the students don'r need to be worried or confused on which layer they are actually drawing on.  

Here are the 'new ' toolbars.  Actually just a new assembly of the existing tools.  

drafting%202D%20layer.rui

2D%20Editing%20Layer.rui

2D%20Text%20Layer.rui

To load the toolbars:

Close the existing toolbars and opening the new toolbars. 

Go to the pull down Tools -- Toolbar Layout

File open --  open each of the toolbars and drag them to a location on the side bar . 

should look like this when done loading.

 

  • up

    Andres Gonzalez Posada

    This looks great, did you keep on working with this idea?

    May 8, 2018

  • up

    Dave Weidkamp

    Andres,

    We have more people looking at what is being done.

    I would like to get a script to start up the toolbars and a start up file (more than a template)

    I talked to Scott a little and there are methods of this but I am not familiar enough to pull it off.

    If you know of how or someone that can program a simple script that upon start up looks for another file rather than the Default files.  I would appreciate this.

    We hope to show it at the teachers conference at North Creek and possibly in Barrow Alaska .

    Thanks

    Dave

    Jun 27, 2018

  • up

    Dave Weidkamp

    I just had some people from Illinois ask about the simplified toolbars.  

    Is there a method of having them come up in a 'template ' style of saving them?  I have tried the themes but not with any success.

    I am thinking there may be some interest in having a few 'sets' of tools that could be loaded easily by teachers to gradually introduce the students to the parts and pieces of Rhino and REduce the 'squirrel' effect.

    Nov 16, 2018