About Us...

KiddyCAD is owned by the Deanery of Business and Computer Sciences within Liverpool Hope University. It houses the development of 3D modelling educational software within the Deanery's School of Computing.

The software has been mainly written by Brian Farrimond who is a Senior Lecturer in Computing at Liverpool Hope. He has benefited greatly from the assistance and guidance on HCI issues and the production of this web site and video tutorials by Janette Bonar Law.

Robina Hetherington, who is also a Senior Lecturer in Computing at Liverpool Hope has provided invaluable guidance, and collaboration in writing papers on the Church Builder ideas and assistance in trialling Church Builder in schools. Other members of the School of Computing at Liverpool Hope who have contributed include Lindy Parkinson, Tony Fleet and Alma Whitfield.

Wall paintings

One of the issues raised by Church Builder's ability to put pictures on the walls of churches is that of copyright. Consequently, we have commissioned an artist, Lady Kitt, to create two paintings in the style of a 13th/14th Century artist, Pietro Cavallini, to include as examples in the distribution of Church Builder. You are free to use these two images in your models including on your own web sites. Please acknowledge Lady Kitt as the artist on your site if you do so.

Lady Kitt is a performance artist and painter based in Newcastle. Since 1997 Kitt has worked as a self-employed artist and performer and as such has been employed by the BBC, The Sage Gateshead, W.E.A., British Youth Council, and E.I.L. Vermont, USA. Her performance experience has been eclectic to say the least, ranging from Covent Garden Opera House to a Portuguese pig shed! Last year Kitt’s work “Not-Mades” was short listed for Blind Art’s “Sense and Sensuality” competition.

For more information about her work contact www.myspace.com/lady_kitt.

Advice on 3D visualisation has been provided by Rob Aspin of the Centre for  Virtual Environments at Salford University.

3D Modelling for Children

3D models are increasingly used to visualize objects for presentation in schools. Children are sophisticated consumers of 3D worlds and engaging creatively with ICT in the classroom is recognized as beneficial to developing multiple intelligences in children. Historically, the creation of 3D models by children has, however, been considered too difficult a process to master. Part of the problem has been the reluctance of all but the most enthusiastic teachers to employ modelling software that they do not feel competent to use and teach successfully.

Kiddy CAD modelling software

Kiddy CAD's first product - Church Builder - is an attempt to overcome this reluctance. It is  designed for use by children, is fast, fun and easy to learn and has minimal system requirements. The tool treats the underlying data of the 3D models as a tree structure of nodes, consisting of parameterized representations of the components of the objects being modeled.  The tool automatically generates graphics primitives that enable the visualization of and interaction with the object, allowing children to rapidly build sophisticated model church structures

"What should I build" instead of "how should I build"?

The core design concept of Church Builder has been the creation of a 3D modeling tool which children could "get the hang of" after a brief demonstration and 15 minutes of coordinated practice. The aim has been that the tool should become ‘transparent’ technology, subsumed in the act of building, just as the technology of pen and paper is subsumed in the urge to set down a story on paper. Consequently, Church Builder appears unique in its simplicity and approach to task accomplishment compared with its peers. Just as the child begins to think, “Now what should I write?’ Church Builder aims to stimulate the question, “Now what should I build?”

INHERIT

Software development took place within the context of a larger project, the INHERIT project.  INHERIT aims to allow school children to share in the creation and distribution of cultural heritage models on-line, within the context of a collaborative environment enabled by the Internet. We are planning to expand the scope of our software to address the construction of a wider range of historical buildings in the form of plug-ins.