@unknownuser said:

Guzman That's very cool ...
Do you have any suggestions or tips for teaching kids in Sketchup?

Thank you!

Well, kids love sketchup,
so normally it's easy to engage them.
My main advice is to guide them with worksheets so that they have
a precise aim in each lesson.
Put great care in giving them clear and easy to read worksheets.
Introduce sketchup commands very gradually in each worksheet.

I normally follow a path that goes from simple polyhedrons (cubes ....)
to everyday objects (tables, chairs, ...) to more complex objects
(both mathematical or real objects).

You can check here what they've done last year in 18 lessons more or less.
Models are subdivided in collections according to lessons.

guzman.

thanks Puma and thanks Mike.

@bryan k said:

Does this animation use SketchUp Physics as well?

No physics ...
I forgot to mention
here's the model

and here's the drawing:

Here's a video (made by me) of Polyhedrons made by 13-year old students:

[flash=640,505:27685o0v]http://www.youtube.com/v/8TQGwBzQjag?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0[/flash:27685o0v]

@unknownuser said:

Kids must have loved that!

They're just waiting to be 13 to use sketchup in school
(I make them use it for lots of 3D geometry).
Some of them have donwloaded it and started to use it at home.
I may let them use it this year for some lessons
since they're really asking for it.
Normally I make them use Cabri and Geogebra when they're 11 and 12
for 2D geometrical constructions. You may watch a video here or here (and many more in my channel).

There are lots of things to explore about teaching math today.

guz.

@bryan k said:

Does this animation use SketchUp Physics as well?

Nope, just a fixed background and scenes, no physics.

@unknownuser said:

Always fresh style!

Merci Pilou !!

It's very simple but I thought it might be worth sharing ...

I teach math to 11-year old kids.
They also send me drawings and ideas.
So I decided to transform one of their drawings
into a 3D model
with Sketchup PhotoMatch

[flash=640,385:2bctvdmr]http://www.youtube.com/v/zM-YQ1q-qtc[/flash:2bctvdmr]

They loved the result,
and I do too.

I thought you might be interested.

guzman,
tierno.

(PS:
As you may remember
I let my students use Sketchup for math lessons
when they are 13
'cause that's when we study solid geometry in italy)

@Lobster:

That's interesting,
thank you.
I hope I'll be able to do something like that,
I still have to understand all the options of Twillight.

By carefully choosing the colors
I think that something like that would fit nicely as a forum banner.

@d12dozr said:

... Jeff's is even better

Yes, Jeff's idea it's a very nice improvement to the model and solves the problem of rendering the grid.

@unknownuser said:

We can modify the model?

Yes.

I know this isn't in the rules of a "Render This" challenge,
but in this case improvements and even bigger modifications of the model are allowed.

I uploaded Jeff's improvement here (with his name)
I've set the background color to the one it should have in the forum.
I've also set the point of view it should more or less have (but of course you can modify it).

Edit: I've told the mods in SpeedSolving.com to come check this thread.

@unknownuser said:

.
here's a skp that might make for a more interesting render ...

a quick test render showing what the model looks like.. (3D cubes keep the grid for the signage and thicker/outlined letters)

That's way better than the original, the solution is simple and effective.

@solo said:

Refering to the banner used on this rubrics cube solving website: http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/forum.php
...
best render I'm assuming will be used for that site?
...
Have fun, get creative, use lights...do your thing.

As Marcus (d12dozer) explained, I made this model as a candidate banner for the SpeedSolving.com Forum. They actually chose this banner.

I was now trying to give the banner some cool effects (some materials, some lights, some shininess) but I am completely new to renders so I really don't know how to do it.

I think that the SpeedSolving Forum will be happy to accept improvements of the banner.
I can show this thread to the mods fo SpeedSolving so that they can see what's going on and have some interaction.

I'm not interested in being the only author of the banner, so if someone comes up with a nice rendering we can share the authoring of the product.
Let me add this is a "for fun" project: no money for me or anybody.

A technical aspect: I think it would be nice if the grid in the banner also shows in the final result 'cause it recalls the squares of the Rubik's Cube, but Marcus explained me that the solution is to add the grid again after rendering.