Readers of this magazine may find this Sketchup Make tutorial a bit too

simple, very elementary, and below the usual standards of the tips and
tricks shared here by advanced users. Its simplicity is precisely its point.
This tutorial is not for you, advanced users. It's for the kids.
I'm a schoolteacher, teaching Information and Communications Technology
(ICT) in a Portuguese school. Sketchup Make is used extensively by my 1112 year old pupils, as well as other 3D modelling apps and a 3D printer. ICT
class is about exposing our students to digital technology, teaching them
the basics of computer use, and challenging them to learn work
methodologies with digital tools. In our specific case, we took a good look at
the curricular goals for ICT, which are generally achieved with internet
research and office tools, and asked ourselves what would be more
interesting: challenging pupils to create multimedia projects using office
tools, or 3D modelling programs? The learning goals are the same, but the
more advanced tools used give our students a broader horizon, enabling
them work in projects that are far from their personal experiences. And, in
the case of Sketchup, they love using it.
Our focus is not in training accomplished 3D modellers or designers, but in
the broadening of young children's horizons. To put it in another way: when
preparing children for an uncertain future of fast evolving technologies, is it
more important to train them as Microsoft office ninjas, or to foster
inquisitive minds and flexibility with digital tools? As a result of these ideas,
my class is one of those rare ones where students enter without prior
knowledge of the subject and exit a few weeks later holding their own 3D
printed objects in their hands.
This quite lengthy introduction serves as a justification for this basic tutorial.
This is about teaching young kids to use Sketchup Make, so it has to be
simple, fast, and give quick results. Usually I teach them to create a simple
house in order for them to gain proficiency with Sketchup modelling tools,
and then a dome/chess piece/church steeple to teach some more advanced
techniques. Why church steeples, you ask? Well, if you combine a complex
profile with a polygonal path in Sketchup's follow me tool, you end up with
some pretty cool structures, very similar to the steeples in baroque
churches. And we have a lot of those buildings in Portugal.
3D printing with Sketchup has its pitfalls even for advanced users.
Unleashing this tool with children creates a specific set of difficulties, since
they haven't yet acquired the necessary dexterity and rigor in modelling.
Sketchup's flexibility with geometry makes it easy to create complex and
beautiful pieces that are a nightmare to prepare as prints. From our
experience, other applications, such as Tinkercad, are actually more suitable
to enabling children to easily create 3D printable models. To be fair,
Sketchup with its export to STL plug-in is amazing for simple pieces, and
maybe the complete set of tools in the Professional version ease up the job
of creating 3d printable hollow shells. However, at our level of teaching,

Sketchup Make is the best tool. Hence this tutorial, showing how to use it to
create a simple, 3D printable Sketchup model. Shall we begin?
1. To begin, let's set up our workspace. Since we're creating for 3D printing,
control over dimensions is very important. Sketchup Make is a very rigorous
modeller, but we need to make sure our model is printable, that it's
dimensions do not exceed those of the printer, and that small details are not
too small for the printer resolution. To make this process easier, we'll choose
the architectural design - millimetres template. 3D printers use millimetres
as unit of measurement.

2. Using the square tool, let's draw a 50x100 mm rectangle on the x-y plane.
That will give us a nice, hefty and quick 3d print.

3. Using drawing tools, let's change the shape of the rectangle into a more
organic shape. Use the erase tool to delete unnecessary lines. Be careful so
as not to leave excessive geometry on the shape.

4. Using the push-pull tool, let's extrude our shape 5 mm in the z plane (the
vertical). Then, select all shapes and group it into an object (left mouse
button - make group option).

5. Now we must be careful. 3D printers require solid models, with nonmanifold geometry and no holes in the mesh. Errors are very easy to create
in Sketchup. Sometimes, all you need is an extra, nearly invisible point or
edge to turn an interesting model into a non solid one, which will give
unexpected or bad results upon the printing process. To certify that your
shape is solid, turn on the Entity Info on the default tray and periodically
select your group. If the Entity Info says it's solid, then you have a 3D
printable model. If not, you'll have to hunt down the error (a stray edge is
the culprit on most of the cases) or using CTRL + Z, step back in your
workflow. The rule of thumb is: Solid Group - printable; just a Group - non

printable. Of course, you can always import your non-solid model into your
favourite slicer and print it, but you'll find the end results rather
disappointing, and a waste of filament. Alternatively, you can use mesh
correction software such as Netfabb, Meshlab or Meshmixer to correct your
shape.

6. Let's create an outer rim for our base. Click on the model using the left
mouse button, and select Edit Group in order to work on the model without
ungrouping it. Using the offset tool, create an inner contour. Then, using the
push-pull tool, push the larger surface inward. That will create the outer rim
and diminish the overall volume of the model, also an important
consideration when modelling for 3D printing. In the example, I've pushed
down the surface by minus 3mm. Be careful during this phase, and check
often the Entity Info panel to see if the model remains a solid group.

7. We have the base for our keychain. Now let's personalize it with our
name. This is very easy, using the text tool in Sketchup Make. The text tool
will extrude any font into a 3D shape, so it's important to remember that
fonts with lots of lines will generate excessive geometry and non-solid
objects.

8. Rotate, reposition and use the Scale Tool to adjust the text object. When
positioning the text, remember to be certain that the text intersects the
keychain base.
9. The text object is a solid component. Let's turn it into a solid group. Select
it, using the left mouse button click on explode, and without deselecting it,
click the left mouse button on make group. Check for Solid Group on the
entity info panel. If you end up with a non-solid group, check the font on the
text tool, to see if its shape is the best for a solid object.

10. A small detail: let's model a small hole in the keychain to pass a string or
chain. Double click on the group (or choose edit group in the context menu
with the left mouse button), trace a circle, and use the push-pull tool to
generate a hole. Remember to check the Entity Info panel to see if it
remains a solid group.

11. Time to finish our keychain. We have two objects, the name and the
keychain, that intersect. We have to transform them into a single 3d
printable model. Boolean tools accomplish this, but they're not available in
the Make edition. So, to make our two groups into a solid object, we'll use
the Outer Shell tool. To use it, select one of the groups by clicking it, check
the Outer Shell tool in the Tools menu, and click the other group. If the end
result is an Solid Group, then the model is ready to print. If not, we must
step back and solve whatever issues are interfering with the successful
conclusion. Sometimes, we actually need to redesign shapes in order to get
them right.
The Outer Shell Tool will intersect inside geometry and turn two intersecting
objects into an hollow one. It's a very useful tool to use with 3D printing,
because it turns our objects into what we need: an hollow, solid model. Still,
it's not a straightforward process. Weirdly, sometimes two solid groups do
not add up. We can always correct it in the STL validation phase, or just try
and print it as is, hoping to have a good result. However, I prefer to finish
the Sketchup modelling phase with the certainty that the model is printable.

You may have noticed that the model images in this tutorial have changed, I
had to redesign some details in order for the Outer Shell Tool to give me
appropriate results.

12. Now, all we need is to export our model to our 3D printer. Sketchup
Make does not export natively into STL, the preferred format for 3D printing.
You can export it as a Collada object, and convert it in STL using Meshlab,
but my empirical use taught me that this process deletes dimension
information, and the STL model will not be of the same size that it was
originally modelled in Sketchup. The best export results are achieved using
a cool plug-in made by the Sketchup team: SketchupSTL. You can find it very
easily on the extensions warehouse. Install it, and now you can directly
export Sketchup models as STL files.
To export, select Export STL from the file menu. You can choose the units of
measurement, and the type of STL file. Select ASCII.

13. Your keychain is ready to print. Still, before importing it into your 3D
printer slicer software, it is highly recommended that the model is verified
by an STL validation app. We use netfabb for this process.
Now, all you need is to insert filament into your 3D printer, and press print.
A small object of this size is usually a quick twenty minutes to one hour print
using medium resolution in our beethefirst printer.