CAD & 3D for Education

3D modelling and CAD belong in classrooms — TinkerCAD alone has more student users than every paid CAD package combined. Pair with 3D printing, STEM hardware, and (older students) mechanical CAD.

The dominant K-12 pick

• ★ Tinkercad (Autodesk) — free; web; the K-12 3D-modelling default. Drag-and-drop primitives; exports STL / OBJ / SVG. Includes Tinkercad Circuits (Arduino / micro:bit simulator) and Tinkercad Codeblocks (block-code → 3D models). Classroom mode.
• Tinkercad Sim Lab — newer (2024+) physics-sim feature.

Free / EDU-licensed pro CAD

• ★ Onshape Education — free for students / educators; cloud parametric CAD; the modern classroom upgrade from Tinkercad. PTC.
• ★ Fusion 360 Education — free for personal / educational use; the de-facto industry-tracking CAD/CAM/CAE for high-school + community-college FabLabs. Autodesk; cloud + desktop hybrid. See mechanical CAD.
• SolidWorks Student / SolidWorks Apps for Kids — paid (~$60/yr student); industry-standard CAD; popular in US engineering high schools.
• Inventor — Autodesk; free for students.
• PTC Creo — free for students; engineering-school flavour.
• Siemens Solid Edge — free for students.

FOSS CAD

• ★ FreeCAD — LGPL; full parametric CAD; v1.0 shipped late 2024 with stability fixes that made it actually classroom-viable. See mechanical CAD.
  • https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD
• OpenSCAD — GPL; programmer's CAD; great way to teach geometry + code together.
  • https://github.com/openscad/openscad
• Blender — GPL; mesh-modelling / sculpting / animation; not parametric CAD but powerful for art / game / animation classes.
• CadQuery / Build123d — see programmatic CAD.

Block-code CAD (kids)

• ★ BlocksCAD — free; block-code → OpenSCAD; the kid-friendly programmatic CAD.
• Beetle Blocks — free; turtle-3D in blocks.
• Tinkercad Codeblocks — see Tinkercad above.

2D drawing / vector

• ★ Inkscape — GPL; the FOSS vector default; great for sticker / signage / laser projects.
  • https://github.com/inkscape/inkscape
• Boxy SVG, Vectr — free; lightweight web vector.
• LibreCAD — GPL; 2D drafting; see 2D drafting.
• QCAD — GPL/community + paid pro; 2D drafting.

3D model libraries

• Thingiverse — free; classic; less curated.
• Printables (Prusa) — free; modern community model library.
• Cults3D — paid + free; designer-oriented.
• Thangs — free + paid; geometric search.
• MyMiniFactory — free + paid; high-quality.
• GrabCAD — free; engineering-flavoured CAD models.
• NIH 3D Print Exchange — free; medical / scientific models.
• Smithsonian Open Access — free; CC0 historical artefact scans.

Gen-AI 3D (2024-26 wave)

• Meshy — paid + free; text-to-3D; quality has improved fast.
• Luma Genie, Tripo3D, CSM — competitors.
• Rodin — paid; high-quality text/image-to-3D.
• For scanning real objects see photogrammetry and gaussian splatting.

Pick this if…

• K-8 default 3D modelling, free: Tinkercad.
• High-school upgrade, free for students: Onshape Edu or Fusion 360 Edu.
• FOSS / linux classroom: FreeCAD + Inkscape.
• Programmatic CAD for code-curious kids: OpenSCAD or BlocksCAD.
• Vector graphics: Inkscape.
• Free 3D model library: Printables.