Hi, it’s Jacob here, and in this quick Tinkercad video, I’m going to show you how the AR mode works on the iPad. Here you can see I’ve got a 3D model of the Pantheon in Rome that I’ve made with my students. And of course, I can move around it and explore it in that 3D space on the workplane.

But actually, we can explore it in our own space, in the classroom we’re currently in, by using the augmented reality mode. That means you can scale up your models as big as you want and walk through the Pantheon, or have it teeny tiny on your desk. They both work just as well.

To get started, we’re going to tap on the AR Viewer in the top toolbar, and it will take a moment to load. Then you’ll see the camera open up and you’ll see the room you’re currently in. For me, I’ve got my desk in front of me, and it’s inviting me to tap wherever I want that model to appear.

If you’re not getting this screen, just slowly pan your iPad left to right and it will detect a horizontal surface to use. I’m going to tap here and… whoa, that’s massive. By default, Tinkercad will use the measurements you’ve given it in the app and will make a life-sized version in the space you’re currently in.

My Pantheon isn’t life-sized. I didn’t use metres, I built it in centimetres instead. But you get the idea – it’s still pretty big for my desk. I can just use two fingers to pinch and zoom, and even rotate the object to place it exactly where I want on my desk.

And then when I’m ready, I can move the iPad and tap the camera button on the right-hand side. That will save a photograph of what I’ve just seen straight into the Photos app on the iPad.

This is a really fun thing to do with your students. If you’ve made a building, you can scale it up really large by pinching and zooming, and then move the iPad and walk through that building, seeing all of the detail and really getting a sense of scale.

But it works just as well for small objects too. You can use one finger to reposition it on the table, two fingers to zoom, and two fingers to twist and rotate, so you can customise exactly where the object is and how it exists in your world.

When you’re done, you can close the AR Viewer and go back to editing it in 3D in Tinkercad. Have a little play with this now, and I’ll see you in the next video in this series where I’m going to show you a couple of clever things to group and duplicate items to save you a ton of time. I’ll see you soon.