Architects live and breathe with their Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) software. CAD allows the architect to quickly and accurately record an idea, and then easily modify it. The best CAD software has components to render the design in three dimension. What would take a high-end supercomputer during the 80’s is now easily available for desktop machines.
The folks at Liverpool Hope University in the U.K. are building a simple CAD program for children called KiddyCAD. Their goal is to give kids a modeling tool that is fast, fun and easy to learn. The first module of KiddyCAD is ChurchBuilder 1.1, which can be used to build churches.
The Liverpudlians describe ChurchBuilder as “3D Modeling Software for children which is quick, easy and fun to use… so simple a grown-up could use it.” The software can be used to learn church design and vocabulary (home schoolers take note.) Their free demo is easy to download and install, and while it has a few minor bugs, it looks great. The authors report:
We have trialled ChurchBuilder in a number of primary schools throughout Merseyside… The response from the children has been very positive. We found the children quickly picked up the church architecture terminology and quite happily talked in terms of naves, chancels, towers and transepts when building their models.
The full version costs £19.99, which is about $10 at last week’s exchange rate. The Bettinger kids have tried working with it, and all seemed to pick the tool up quickly. Reviewing the quick web-based training videos helped them understand the interface and the tools.
Contact Information:
KiddyCAD ChurchBuilder 1.1
http://www.kiddycad.com/index.html
Liverpool Hope University
BACS Deanery
Hope Park,
Liverpool,
L16 9JD,
England
I wanted to try it so I read the web page for supported operating systems only to discover that it doesn’t say what is required.
I wrote to them and their reply was that it runs under Windows 98/2000/ME/XP. We have not tried it out yet on Vista.
Since I only have Mac OS X, that means I will not be able to test it. Oh well.
P. S. They did thank me for pointing out that glaring oversight in their web page.
Another message from Kiddy CAD after I told them what I thought of Windoze.
I thought that was interesting.