HackadayU Announces Rhino, Mech Eng, And AVR Classes During Winter Session

The winter lineup of HackadayU courses has just been announced, get your tickets now!

Spend those indoor hours leveling up your skills — on offer are classes to learn how to prototype like a mechanical engineer, how to create precision 3D models in Rhino, or how to dive through abstraction for total control of AVR microcontrollers. Each course is led by an expert instructor over five classes held live via weekly video chats, plus a set of office hours for further interaction.

  • Introduction to 3D using Rhino
    • Instructor: James McBennett
    • Course overview: Introduces students to Rhino3D, a NURBS based 3D software that contains a little of everything, making it James’ favorite software to introduce students to 3D. Classes are on Tuesdays at 6pm EST beginning January 26th
  • Prototyping in Mechanical Engineering
    • Instructor: Will Fischer
    • Course overview: The tips and tricks from years of prototyping and mechanical system design will help you learn to think about the world as a mechanical engineer does. Classes are on Tuesdays at 1pm EST beginning January 26th
  • AVR: Architecture, Assembly, & Reverse Engineering
    • Instructor: Uri Shaked
    • Course overview: Explore the internals of AVR architecture; reverse engineer the code generated by the compiler, learn the AVR assembly language, and look at the different peripherals and the registers that control their behavior. Classes are on Wednesdays at 2pm EST beginning January 27th

Consider becoming an Engineering Liaison for HackadayU. These volunteers help keep the class humming along for the best experience for students and instructors alike. Liaison applications are now open.

HackadayU courses are “pay-as-you-wish” with a $10 suggested donation; all proceeds go to charity with 2019 contributions topping $10,100 going to STEAM:CODERS. There is a $1 minimum to help ensure the live seats don’t go to waste. Intro videos for each course from the instructors themselves are found below, and don’t forget to check out the excellent HackadayU courses from 2020.

13 thoughts on “HackadayU Announces Rhino, Mech Eng, And AVR Classes During Winter Session

  1. Happy to see Rhino getting some love. I’ve described it as ‘AutoCAD, but fun!’, and have gotten all manner of strange looks. Of all the workflows and software I endure in exchange for rent and booze money, Rhino is by far my favorite.

  2. What options are there for people who want to take the class but can’t due to timing constraints?
    Will the courses be available to view afterwards, obviously without teacher support?

      1. Hi, we will be releasing the recorded courses on Hackaday’s YouTube within a few weeks of the end of the course. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive updates or just keep an eye out there.

  3. This Rhino thingy sounded good until I saw that their ‘free’ version craps itself after 90 days, then it’s about a thousand US dollars to purchase (about a zillion local pesos according to xe.com) AND is licenced through the cloud. Yeah…. nah.

  4. Rhino (or Rhinoceros) 7 costs $995.00 USD, $395.00 to update, and only runs on Windows and Mac, not Linux (Wine maybe or VM?) And that’s just the start. Next there is Flamingo nXt 5 for rendering $495.00, $295.00 to upgrade, and Bongo 2 for animation $495.00, $295.00 to upgrade. For the whole suite it’s $1,985.00, $985.00 to upgrade. Prices are for a commercial single-user license, but they offer some things called the Lan Zoo or Cloud Zoo that appears to make the license portable and/or multi-user for free. Yeah, I’m skeptical. There are cheaper student and faculty licenses available. See the whole gamut here:

    https://www.rhino3d.com/en/sales/north-america/United_States/

    Maybe Rhino 7 is the best thing since sliced bread and there’s nothing else out there like it. If you can’t live without the proprietary closed single-source Rhino software, knock yourself out. But I feel it would be better for everyone if HackadayU offered a course or courses on something or some-things that are more affordable, open, and community supported rather than representing a single point of failure. Look at the suggestions from here:

    https://alternativeto.net/software/rhinoceros/

    1. Hi Drone, You can take the mechanical prototyping course which only requires a pencil and paper. Or sit the Rhino class and apply the concepts to Open SCAD or whatever your favorite is :)

  5. Finally something on Hackaday that I am proficient at. I am surprised to see Rhino promoted by the Hackaday crowd but it is a fantastic program. It costs a fraction of what a more industrial design focused moddeler like Solidworks costs and it hits far above it’s weight. There is a great community around it, particularly with the visual script editor Grasshopper, but it isn’t open source at all so it won’t suit everyone here.

  6. @Sophi Kravitz said: “…sit the Rhino class and apply the concepts to Open SCAD or whatever your favorite is :)”

    Yeah, but I think it would be better if HAD offered a class based on open community-supported applications to begin with. Sitting in on a proprietary Rhino class does not directly apply to something else. Of-course, if there was something so unique and special about Rhino that it MUST have its own separate course, then that would NOT apply to something else like Open SCAD at all.

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