This page gives you more insight into what each student did for their assigned tasks in 2026

This year we did the 900, 1100, 1500 and 4000 buildings. In order to start making the 3D buildings, we first had to go through a number of steps. First, we had to decide which building we would do, and then we would use a 3D scanner to scan the building. Next, we took those scans and separated them into our individual buildings. Then we cleaned them up and exported them into AutoCAD. From there, we would start making a high-res and low-res 3D model of the building. Afterward, we would export specific copies of the buildings to Inventor and 3DSMax. We used Inventor to make 3D printable models of our buildings, and we used 3DSMax to apply materials/textures to our buildings. Finally, we would 3D print the parts and then export them to be used in Sketchfab.

I was tasked with the responsibility of the 3D printing part of this project, which not only was quite fun, but also presented some challenges I was willing to face. I helped adjust the thickness for the building base platforms as well as adjusting the magnet hole sizes. My building was not without its issues, where everyone else’s buildings were just that, buildings, mine is built into a hill, but I was able to include some sort of simplified version of the terrain, despite not being the most accurate representation.

The task that I got assigned was editing the website. It took a little bit but after viewing the website, looking at my available resources the previous website editor Giovanni left, I caught up very quick and started editing. One deal I did add that took time was when hovering your cursor on an image it will display the building name and number as well as the student who did it.

My primary job was running the Gantt charts to help us organize tasks for the deadlines and managing the poster of the rendered elements, followed by managing backups to save us from worst-case scenarios, and the creation of a few “how-to” documents for specific tasks to make the job less stressful for future contributors to the project. One of the most difficult parts was seeing how I had set some unrealistic goals for the team on the Gantt chart at the start of the project, along with extensive typo and formatting reworks on the poster.

My primary task in the final project was to upload the student's 3D models into Sketchfab, an interactive website used to display our work. To do this, I first had to downsize the file size of our models from 3ds Max and the materials we applied. This needed to be done as Sketchfab has a limitation of file sizes for uploaded models. Using “Flatiron”, an external plug-in for 3ds Max, I converted all the unique materials for each building into one. This process “unwraps” all the materials applied to the building and turns them into one “skin” and file that can be reapplied to the building. Doing this to every building downsized our file size enough to meet the limitations of Sketchfab.