CaDoodle: Doodle in CAD!

Based on a comment i decided to make Threading a BasicShape. It was always possible to use the Ring shape to turn it into threads, but this makes it a standard shape.

As of today, April 14th 2025, I have released CaDoodle as Beta release! I have achieved feature-complete with respect to the original TinkerCAD feature list. All modeling features and processes from Tinkercad can be replicated in CaDoodle. A Tinkercad user can use their skills and transfer their existing learning into CaDoodle.

If you are a QE or have experience with QA please reach out. I am actively seeking Beta Testers.

The main task now is a set of testing documents. I need to make procedures with expected behaviors for testers to run through. Anyone with experience making testing documents is especially encouraged to reach out! 

I finally added the Ruler tool! This tool lets you click on a surface and use that as the reference dimensions for the move operations. You can place the ruler on the ground, workplane or any surface of any part. it will remain orientated to the current workplane so your reference dimensions in the move handles

will remain accurate.

As an elementary school technology teacher, TinkerCAD provided easy to use on-ramps for students as young as 2nd grade. I spent the 23/24 school year teaching with TinkerCAD and found myself increasingly upset by the limitations and constraints of TinkerCAD. First and foremost, the fact of the CAD models sources being entirely unavailable. The "Tinkercad source" is actually entries in the Autodesk servers database. With no option to access those actual sources, students are tied entirely to the tinkercad website.

The first real problem came when a student made a model in 5th grade that was so complex that the Tinkercad site crashed. The model was not recoverable, and the student that had done all of that extra work to add detail to his model lost everything. This experience started me thinking about how this could be made better for the students.

The next major problem came when another student wanted to do CAD work on her ride home (which due to bus schedules took over an hour each day). She wanted to keep designing things, but without an internet connection she was unable to do any work.

Finally i began to contemplate the pedagogical damage being done by teaching students a skill that is only accessible to them as mediated by a company. I began to feel a deep sense of unease that the skills of my students were increasingly being trapped behind a paywall.

My solution was to make a locally installed application, that used an open file format that is stored locally on the disk, and that had access to the full resources of the computer the application was running on.