I am trying to find out ay what age children can start using sketchup. I am interested because I do not have kids. I am trying to find out from others if you were a child and learnt SU or if you have observed children playing with sketchup… I would love it if kids used sketchup as I think if kids would take to sketchup because frankly screen time for children scares the hell out of me. I even interested if kids are interested in the program, Penny for your thoughts
Hi @Stevo1, thanks for the post. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I find that late elementary school is generally the earliest that students can start to get a good handle on some of the concepts that really make SketchUp what it is. Of course there are exceptions to that as some students can start even sooner and others may need more time to come to terms with some concepts required to use SketchUp effectively.
I will admit though that I am biased about this as I started around that age. I took to SketchUp pretty well and have good memories learning it through trial and error as there was little to no curriculum for people that were my age at the time.
I’ll wrap this post up by saying that many kids today are tech enthusiasts and are eager to see what they can do with it. If you give them a chance, you might be surprised with how far they can go.
I taught my son how to use it during the pandemic. He was 11 or 12 (6th Grade) and took to it for building a room, simple geometry, inserting objects to create a floor plan.
Did he continue using it?
Yes, on occasion, for fun. I think it would be a great program for highschools to offer as an elective for Art or Tech.
I am in 100% agreement that high school students should be offered it as an elective. 3D design gets used in so many industries, exploring them would have been a huge benefit to me and some of my friends back in the day. I just kept practicing it for fun on my own throughout high school and college so the development of my skills was slower than I would have liked. Thanks to those skills, I eventually got an internship with SketchUp. Now I work full time for the SketchUp team and love what I do.
I am glad today that there is a lot more learning material for SketchUp. Both official and unofficial. If anyone is undecided about letting their kids or students try SketchUp, I highly recommend letting them try it. I sometimes am still surprised by the insightful questions they ask and am often delighted by what they can do after a few hours of class time.
I would consider an essential part of the process to be hands on practical skills. That would be building blocks (or even Lego) to establish a basic understanding of forms and structures in the real world, and then perhaps as a start point modelling those same building blocks in SU and building with them. Their age doesn’t matter if they can relate to the concept of moving from real to virtual.
I am no expert on child psychology, but I consider the real world aspect is critical. The work I do brings drawings from different Architectural designers across my desk and it is clear that there is a growing gulf of understanding between those who stare at a screen all day and those with real world practical skills who try to interpret those drawings. If you don’t know how or why bricks are put together in a certain way, then how can you begin to design a wall?