Official

Guide to
Tinkercad
Circuits
Official Guide to Tinkercad Circuits

Tinkercad Circuits is the easiest way to get your students started with learning
electronics. Using our interactive circuit editor, students can explore, connect,
and code virtual projects with a bottomless toolbox of simulated components.

Available in 16 languages, on any computer with an internet connection,

Tinkercad Circuits is an unmatched resource for electronics education.

1. Exploring Circuits p.03

2. Micro:bit in Tinkercad p.08
3. Arduino in Tinkercad p.13
4. Bridging 3D Design and Circuits p.19
5. General Tips p.20
6. Teaching Circuits with Tinkercad p.22
7. Support & FAQ p.23

Scan this QR code to access a digital

version of this Offical Tinkercad Guide.
autode.sk/tinkercad-guide-circuits
01 Exploring Circuits

After signing in to Tinkercad you’ll find a dashboard of your recent designs. By

default, this dashboard will showcase designs made with Tinkercad’s 3D editor.
To see a view of your Circuit designs, simply click the Circuits link in the left
menu (highlighted below).

From this Circuits view you can scroll through any of your existing creations, or
create something new by clicking the Create New Circuit button.

Tinkercad’s Circuits editor has a similar

layout to its 3D design editor. You’ll
find a large workspace on the left for
creating your design. On the right side
you’ll see a panel filled with compo-
nents you can drag and drop into the
workspace to create your circuit.

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 Unlike Tinkercad’s 3D design editor, the workspace in Circuits is two-dimen-
sional. You can move your components around by selecting and dragging them,
or pan the view around your design by clicking and dragging the empty space
around it.

You can also zoom in and out of your design by using the scroll wheel on your
mouse, a two-finger gesture on your trackpad, or a key combination of Com-
mand + and Command -.

A “Zoom to fit” button is located in the top left corner of the workspace, which
will center and zoom your design to fill the window. Pressing the letter F on
your keyboard works as a handy shortcut for this same command.

If this is your first time using the Circuits editor, we encourage you to explore
the different buttons and options available to you in the menu bar across the
top. Hovering your mouse over any of the buttons should reveal an explanation
for what it does, as well as any keyboard shortcuts that accomplish the same
command.

Likewise, spend a minute browsing some of the other options and menus avail-
able in the component panel. By default, the Circuits editor presents you with a
selection of the most popular basic components for learning electronics. To
access more components, use the dropdown menu to select the All Components
view, or search for specific components using the search bar beneath the menu.

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You’ll also notice that we have more than just components in this menu. Fur-
ther down, you’ll find a selection of Starters. These are pre-made circuit exam-
ples that students can drag into the workspace, simulate, edit, and remix.

These Starters fall into four main categories: Basic, Arduino, Micro:bit, and
Circuit Assemblies. Every one of our Starters comes to life in some way when
the Start Simulation button is pressed.

Basic Starters are made from the kind of common electronic components typi-
cally used to introduce students to electronics (LEDs, batteries, hobby motors,
resistors, and switches). These examples use no microcontrollers, and no code.

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 With Arduino Starters, students can see the kind of advanced interactions that
are possible with programmable microcontrollers. Each of the Arduino Starters
include a code view, which students can directly edit using a built-in
blocks-style interface, a text-based editor, or a combined view.

Our most recent addition are the

micro:bit Starters. Similar to the
Arduino starters, these are
microcontroller projects that use
the popular micro:bit education-
al electronics board. They also
include an editable code view.

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Finally, we have the Circuit Assemblies Starters. There are only a handful of
these and they’re directly linked to projects that tie-in both 3D design and
basic electronics. These projects include:

Glow Circuit at autode.sk/tinkercad-glow

Move Circuit at autode.sk/tinkercad-move
Spin Circuit at autode.sk/tinkercad-spin

If you’ve exhausted our Starters and you’re still hungry for more our Gallery
page, at autode.sk/tinkercad-gallery-circuits, includes a selection of commu-
nity contributed designs to spark your inspiration. Alternatively, you can use
the Circuits view of our search tool, at autode.sk/tinkercad-search-circuits, to
locate specific designs that may be useful to you.

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 02 Micro:bit in Tinkercad

The BBC micro:bit is a popular and inexpensive circuit board designed for stu-
dents to learn electronics and coding. As the newest addition to Tinkercad
circuits, it benefits from having our most recent starter examples. Learn more
about BBC micro:bit at microbit.org.

Micro:bit Starters
The quickest way to start exploring micro:bit in Tinkercad is to drag out one of
the example designs from the Starters menu. Each of these designs can be
brought to life in some way using the simulation mode, and include code that
students can copy, modify, and build on.

Coding micro:bit
To view or edit code on any of our programmable circuits (including Arduino),
simply press the Code button to toggle the coding tools in and out of view.

Students can code their micro:bit creations using a Scratch-based system of

code blocks, similar to the system used on Microsoft’s MakeCode website.
Coding with blocks is a fantastic way for beginners to visualize the logic and
patterns of code.

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As you can see from the Starters examples, in spite of its approachability,
blocks programming is capable of some relatively sophisticated interactions.
We like to call it a “low floor, high ceiling” programming language.

That said, your more advanced or adventurous students have the option of
exploring micro:bit coding using the popular scripting language of Python. This
option can be found using the dropdown menu above the blocks code tools.

Students can change this code view from the default Blocks option, to a Blocks
+ Text (Python) view, or a purely Text view. The Blocks + Text view is perfect for
beginners, allowing them to explore coding possibilities using familiar blocks
while seeing the same concepts represented in the written language of Python.

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 Please note: Moving your blocks code to Python is a one-way street. When
changing any blocks-based code to a fully text-based option you’ll be present-
ed with a warning that the conversion cannot be undone.

Any attempt to revert a design back to a Blocks view of the code will erase the
code. We’ve done our best to make this as clear as possible within the editor to
prevent students from accidentally deleting their code. As their instructor, you
may want call special attention to this and have students duplicate a backup of
their designs before exploring the different code environments.

For more information on our

Python integration for micro:bit
(including our Python debug-
ging tool) check out our blog
post titled Python Coding with
micro:bit in Tinkercad Circuits
autode.sk/tinkercad-python.

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Debugging micro:bit Code
If your code isn’t quite up to snuff, our built-in debugger will let you know. The
debugging interface will kick-in automatically if it detects an error in your code.

Another advantage of debugging is that you can add breakpoints in your code.
By selecting a line number in your code, the highlighted line marks a point where
the code will pause during simulation.

When debugging with break points, two

buttons will appear above the code
window during simulation. You can use
these buttons to either resume the
execution of the code after the break-
point, or step to the next line of code.

Adding breakpoints is also a useful way to reveal variable values while simulat-
ing your project.

The example above shows the Compass project located in our Starters menu.
When the simulation is paused at a breakpoint anywhere in the code, you can
hover over a variable (in this case “angle”) and see its value at that moment in
time. For this example, we can play around with the board’s orientation and
check to see if the math accurately indicates the direction.

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 Micro:bit Lessons
For a more structured approach to learning the fundamentals of micro:bit,
students can work through our self-paced, interactive lessons at
autode.sk/tinkercad-learn-microbit.

There are five distinct lessons within this project. Similar to our interactive
lessons for basic circuits and Arduino, students are provided with a sidebar
outlining the instructions they need to follow to complete each task.

If you’re using Tinkercad Classrooms

to onboard and manage your student
experience with Tinkercad, you’ll be
able to see a student’s completed
lessons in the Lessons section of their
design gallery, or within the Designs
section of your class dashboard.

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03 Arduino in Tinkercad

For over 15 years, the Arduino ecosystem of microcontroller boards and code
libraries have become an indispensable part of electronics education. But if
you’ve ever worked with a student to connect an Arduino board to their com-
puter, download Arduino’s IDE software, update the libraries, and configure the
ports, you know that it can be a bumpy road.

The Arduino simulation within Tinkercad simplifies the learning experience. It’s
free, works on any computer with an Internet connection, and scales to any
class size. Best of all, Tinkercad Circuits provides a bottomless supply of virtual
components that students can use to build and simulate their projects.

When they’re ready to physically prototype their projects, Tinkercad Circuits

makes it easy to export their code as a native Arduino (.ino) file that they can
upload to their board.

Learn more about Arduino at www.arduino.cc.

Arduino Starters
One of the fastest ways to explore the possibilities of Arduino in Tinkercad is
to simply drag one of our sample Starter circuits into your workspace.

We have nearly two dozen Arduino Starter circuits to choose from. Each exam-
ple includes sample code that you can view, simulate, and modify.

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 Coding Arduino in Tinkercad
Tinkercad allows you to code your Arduino using two different approaches. Our
Blocks code editor offers beginners a visual system of functions that they can
drag and rearrange. All of our Arduino Starters, and most of our interactive
Arduino lessons will include or refer to Blocks code.

Part of the magic of learning to code Arduino in Tinkercad is that our editor
will automatically generate text-based code (C++) from students’ blocks code.
By switching the code view to Blocks + Text, students can see the logic of their
blocks code translated to C++ code.

Modifications made to their blocks code will instantly update in the text view,
providing insight into the logic and syntax of C++.

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Of course, once students are ready to create their code directly in the text
editor, they can switch to a pure text view. This view offers an experience simi-
lar to programming with Arduino’s IDE editor.

Using Arduino Code Libraries

Tinkercad’s Arduino text editor includes eleven built-in libraries. You can view
and add these libraries to your project by selecting the file box icon above your
code.

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 The included libraries represent some of the most popular and common librar-
ies used in Arduino. It is possible, though, to run code that requires Arduino
libraries beyond the included examples.

When you open an Arduino library source file (.c or .cpp) you’ll find that it is
simply a clipping of C++ Arduino code. By copying and pasting this library clip-
ping into the appropriate sections of your Arduino code, you may be able to
effectively make it work.

Your mileage may vary. Libraries are oftentimes made to adapt Arduino to spe-
cialized hardware or shields. If these hardware components aren’t included in
Tinkercad, no amount of code editing will make the project work.

Debugging Arduino Code

One of the biggest challenges in learning to code is learning how to trouble-
shoot problems when the code isn’t working as planned. When a student’s code
doesn’t work, Tinkercad’s error console will automatically pop into view. Simi-
lar to how errors are reported in the Arduino IDE, this error console will report
and highlight the suspected issues that need fixing.

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Tinkercad’s Arduino debugger also includes a unique and useful code break
feature. By selecting lines of code, you can define moments within your code
where you’d like the simulation to pause. These pauses will happen automati-
cally automatically during simulation,
allowing students to read values and
troubleshoot problems. A button
above their code resumes the simula-
tion or advances to the next break.

Arduino Lessons
Our selection of Arduino lessons, at
autode.sk/tinkercad-learn-arduino,
provides students with an interac-
tive, self-paced system for learning
how to work with electronics using Arduino.

As students open these lessons, they’ll find a sidebar on the left with
instructions on how to complete their design.

There are 28 lessons available at this time. The last 15 (represented with
green title cards) are taken from the Arduino Projects Book by Scott Fitzger-
ald and Michael Shiloh. It is the book that Arduino includes in their official
Starter Kit. Companion videos for these lessons can be found on Arduino’s
Remote Learning Playlist.

If you’re using Tinkercad Classrooms to onboard and manage your student

experience with Tinkercad, you’ll be able to see a student’s completed lessons
in the Lessons section of their design gallery, or within the Designs section of
your class dashboard.

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 Arduino Lessons Plan
Program an LED Light Show is a free, standards-aligned lesson plan developed
by Dr. Ben Finio of Cornell University’s Sibley School of Mechanical and Aero-
space Engineering. In it, students learn the basics of building a circuit and
programming an Arduino to control it.

The lesson plan comes complete with video resources and PowerPoint slides
and is geared towards students in grades 6-12 (US). This lesson is available at
autode.sk/tinkercad-lesson-LED-show.

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04 Bridging 3D Design and Circuits

Because Tinkercad works as both an electronics editor, and a 3D design tool,

naturally there are opportunities to bridge these two capabilities

On Instructables, you can find several

classroom-ready activities that weave to-
gether basic electronics, 3D design and 3D
printing. These activities include the Glow
Circuit at autode.sk/tinkercad-glow, Move
Circuit at autode.sk/tinkercad-move, and
Spin Circuit at autode.sk/tinkercad-spin.

For an Arduino-based activity that combines 3D design and electronics, check out
our guide for creating a LED Ring Butterfly at autode.sk/tinkercad-LED-ring.

In each of these examples, students will find pre-built 3D components in Tin-

kercad’s 3D editor, under the Circuits Assemblies menu. The Circuits Compo-
nents menu compliments these designs with accurate 3D representations of
popular components.

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 05 General Tips

Micro:bit Starters
Within the Circuits workspace there are some handy keyboard shortcuts
worth knowing.

F - Zoom to fit
N - Create note
Shift + N - Hide/reveal notes
R - Rotate
You can quickly change the color of a wire by selecting it
and pressing any number key (0-9).
By holding shift you can select multiple items in the
workspace to move or delete.

Annotation
Both educators and students can take advantage of the Notes tool for explain-
ing designs or provisioning feedback. The Notes feature can be found in the
toolbar above the Circuits workspace (or activated using the N key on your
keyboard).

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Once a note has been placed on a design, its placement can be further adjusted
to prevent it from obscuring components. If too many notes are cluttering a
design, their visibility can be toggled on and off using the button with the
eye-shaped icon.

Sharing Designs
By default, anything you or your students design in Tinkercad is considered
private. Private designs can’t be shared between users and they will not appear
in Tinkercad Gallery search results.

To share a Tinkercad Circuits design with your students you must first make it
public. It’s an easy change to make using the design’s Properties window. We
also have a step-by-step guide on making and sharing public designs in Tinker-
cad at autode.sk/tinkercad-sharing.

For a teacher to view a student’s design, a student must have an individual

account (in which case they can follow the steps outlined in the link above), or
be a part of a Tinkercad Classrooms account that you manage. Learn about
Tinkercad Classrooms at autode.sk/tinkercad-guide-classrooms.

Public designs also include HTML code that you can use to embed your designs
on a website. Learn how autode.sk/tinkercad-embed. This can come in handy
for including designs within a course overview page for your class, or as part of
an Instructables guide.

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 06 Teaching Circuits with Tinkercad

In our ongoing webinar series Teaching with Tinkercad we feature educators

who are putting Tinkercad to use in their classrooms and sharing what they’ve
learned. View the complete series at autode.sk/tinkercad-webinar.

In the episode Making Hands-On Work in a Digital World (Ep. 3) you’ll hear
from Panion Tase on how he uses Tinkercad to introduce basic electronics to
his students. View at autode.sk/tinkercad-webinar-ep3.

Later, in episode 5, educators Dori Friedman and Becky Stern will show you
how to teach with micro:bit and Arduino in Tinkercad Circuits.
View at autode.sk/tinkercad-webinar-ep5.

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Support & FAQ

Our Tinkercad Knowledgebase includes an extensive FAQ for Tinkercad Circuits

at autode.sk/tinkercad-faq-circuits for any questions you may have that aren’t
covered here. From this same page, you have the option to create a ticket with
our support team for additional help.

We created Tinkercad as a tool to empower anyone in the world to learn how to

design and make things, and shape the world around them. Educators like you
make this all possible, and if there’s anything we can do to improve the Tinker-
cad experience for your classroom, don’t hesitate to send your suggestions to
[email protected].

-Team Tinkercad

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