The process for creating a model of my water bottle was very frustrating. One of my main issues with this was the trackpad on my laptop. I remember struggling with this when we did the quick demo of Fusion 360 in class on Tuesday, but I thought I would get a better grasp of it the more I worked with it. While I would say I got a better grasp of it, it was not by much. I found it pretty difficult to navigate around the workspace with the trackpad. When I was zooming in and out, it felt like I would barely move my fingers to zoom, and the workspace would either blow up or shrink very quickly.
Another aspect of this that I really struggled with was the handle on the top. I found it frustrating when I was trying to get it stacked perfectly on top of the bottle. I would keep trying to add a sketch of the handle on top of the bottle, but the sketch kept going to the bottom of the bottle, where the origin was. Once I finally figured out how to get on top of the bottle, I drew the sketch wrong. The way I originally drew it, there was no gap between the handle and the bottle. I was struggling trying to figure out exactly how to get that gap there, but eventually I just drew a rectangle on the handle, and used the extract feature to just take out that rectangle in the handle.
Overall, it was a frustrating but fun project to work on. I did find it cool that all the different edits and creations you can make in Fusion. Being able to make all the 2D sketches and bring them to life with 3D was really interesting, and I am excited to keep working with Fusion to get even better and work with even more features that I did not work with this time. My one piece of advice, other than to use a mouse, is to take a minute to gather where exactly you are looking. Sometimes, before the bottle started taking shape, I found myself getting confused on which plane I was looking and working with.
Tags: Digital Humanities, 3D modeling
You have a lot of tough angles and geometry in your design. I could see how it could be hard to connect everything precisely, especially given the wonky navigation of Fusion 360. You nailed the appearance of the water bottle, and I think the way you utilized the extract feature and other geometry to solve your problem. Overall, the finished product looks great, and you used a very intuitive and creative method to achieve the result you wanted.
Great work on the design of your water bottle, Logan! I totally relate to the trackpad frustration; I ran into the same issues. Overall, your design feels really well thought out, and the shape looks smooth and clean. I can see how the top would be the most complex part, so nice job sticking with it and ending up with a really creative model.