On TooTallToby.com, a passionate community of CAD enthusiasts are pushing themselves to be better modelers—and having fun along the way.
3… 2… 1… CAD battle!
An engineering drawing is revealed on screen. It shows several views of a simple connector arm, dotted with dimensions and a few helpful annotations known as “Toby notes.” The drawing has a Tier 3 complexity rating.
On opposite sides of the planet, two CAD modelers instantly start making a 3D model of the part. One is using Alibre, the other Solidworks. For these seasoned experts, the modeling is easy. It’s the pressure that’s hard. They’re live on stream before an audience of CAD enthusiasts, trying to tune out their host’s play-by-play commentary and finish the 3D model as fast as they can.
Not even two and a half minutes later, one of them is done.
“ChrisBCo coming in with an answer… 0.654…” The voice belongs to Toby Schnaars, known to his audience as Too Tall Toby. A charismatic CAD expert, he’ll determine who wins the battle by correctly providing the model’s mass. The model, like the competition itself, is his creation.
A dramatic pause, and then, “That is not correct!”
The Australian Solidworks user named ChrisBCo gets only one more chance to answer. He can see that his opponent, an Alibre user from Greece named ExMachina, is nearly finished the part. One way or another, this will be over soon.
Suddenly, ChrisBCo spots the mistake in his model—one wrong dimension. He makes the change and stabs 0.687 into the chat just seconds before ExMachina enters his guess.
“And that is correct!” Schnaars announces to the sound effects of a cheering crowd. With this win, ChrisBCo takes the set of three CAD battles and secures his spot in the quarterfinals. He’s one step closer to winning the 2024 World Championship of 3D CAD Speed Modeling.
***
How fast can you CAD?
Maybe you’ve never thought of it, or cared. Perhaps the idea of speed modeling seems silly for a professional 3D modeler. Or worse—perhaps you think focusing on CAD speed would promote bad habits and sloppy design.
You wouldn’t be alone in thinking those things, but you wouldn’t be right, either. The truth is that speed modeling can greatly benefit your 3D design skills, even if you’re already an experienced modeler.
To see how, look no further than TooTallToby.com. Founded by Toby Schnaars in 2022, the site unites CAD modelers from around the world, using dozens of different CAD systems, around an intriguing premise: the gamification of 3D CAD.
There are challenges, livestreams and competitions. There are points, leaderboards and prizes. But even though it looks like a game of speed, TooTallToby.com isn’t really about being fast. By turning CAD into a game, Schnaars aims to make the players better designers. And you’d be surprised how well it’s working.
The gamification of 3D CAD
Schnaars has deep CAD experience. He’s a Solidworks master, certified at the highest level with both a CSWE and Elite AE. Before founding TooTallToby.com, Schnaars supported Solidworks users both for reseller Prism Engineering and developer Dassault Systèmes. In those roles he resolved over 10,000 support cases and taught more than 200 classes.
As an instructor, there was one question Schnaars heard over and over. Which CAD system was the best? 3D modelers certainly have a long list of options. Was Solidworks more efficient than Inventor? Did Catia have an edge over Solid Edge? Was Fusion or NX the key to success?
The question, Schnaars felt, was misguided. He believes the CAD program is much less important than the person using it. Being a master modeler is about honing the fundamentals, such as building a robust feature tree and effectively navigating a user interface.
“The users who are able to really master those workflows are going to be able to go from a napkin sketch to a 3D model faster than anybody else,” Schnaars said. “Regardless of what CAD system they’re using.”
Schnaars envisioned a “Royal Rumble” of CAD, a race among a group of designers to make the same 3D model at the same time using whatever CAD system they preferred. Not only would this showcase that the designer, not the CAD program, was the important variable—it also sounded like good fun.
That vision meshed with another problem Schnaars had noticed with CAD education. If you want to develop CAD skills, you have a few options. You could take a structured training class, such as the kind Schnaars himself had taught. Or you could take a DIY approach, sifting through YouTube videos piecemeal to build up a repertoire of skills.
Schnaars felt there was a missing piece in CAD pedagogy. He discussed his ideas with Guy Rotheram, a colleague and fellow CAD expert who shared Schnaars’ passion for gaming and technology.
“Toby and I… thought that if we could introduce the concept of gamification into the education process for CAD, then we probably had something that would really spark an interest and provide a valuable service to the broader community… all the way from hobbyists to professional engineers,” Rotheram said.
In 2022, Schnaars, Rotheram, and Schnaars’ wife Vicki Chong launched TooTallToby.com. It would test their ideas for gamifying CAD education while building on Schnaars’ existing online presence as a CAD instructor.
They didn’t have to wait long for interest to be sparked.
The game of speed modeling
So how does it work? TooTallToby’s system-agnostic approach turns CAD into a game of speed, rewarding users based on how quickly they can create 3D models from 2D drawings.
This idea manifests in different ways on TooTallToby.com. One way—gamers might think of it as the solo campaign—is a set of exercises called practice models. Users are given a 2D drawing to turn into a 3D model, with a complexity rating based on the number of features involved (Tier 1 is the simplest, and it goes up from there).
It’s easy to play. Just pick a practice model—there are 78 and counting—and hit the start button. The drawing is revealed and the clock starts ticking. Make the 3D model in whatever CAD system you like, and when you think you’ve got it, enter the mass of your part (each drawing specifies a unit system and material density). If the mass is correct, you’ve won the game and the timer stops. You’re then shown some stats to see how your time compares to other users, and how your speed is (hopefully) improving over time.
Here’s an example of a practice model:
The average solve time for this model is just over 15 minutes. Can you beat it? Try it and check your answer at TooTallToby.com.
Practice models have only been on TooTallToby.com since the start of the year, and they were launched without fanfare. “We just wanted to beta it with whoever would show up,” Rotheram explained. “And it’s taken off like a rocket ship.” Over 15,000 practice models have been successfully completed so far, Rotheram said.
Online CAD competitions
If practice models are a solo campaign, then online competition is represented by Too Tall Toby’s Model Monday Live. Every Monday at 1:00 PM Eastern Schnaars hosts an hour-long livestream in which viewers compete to solve two new models. Whoever types the correct mass first wins a point. Enough points will get you a spot on the leaderboard at TooTallToby.com.
And if you really crave the thrill of competition, you can try your mouse at Toby’s flagship tournament: the World Championship of 3D CAD Speed Modeling.
The 2024 tournament is already well underway, pitting 16 pre-qualified modelers one-on-one in a livestreamed competition taking place over six weeks. The finals are scheduled for October 18, 2024 at 6:00 PM Eastern, with Schnaars providing play-by-play commentary. The winner will walk away with a 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse Enterprise Kit, a 3Dconnexion Keyboard Pro and, of course, ultimate bragging rights.
The TooTallToby community may get a kick out of quick CAD, but it’s more than just a game—it’s a path to being a better modeler.
The fun path to CAD mastery
Schnaars likens the exercise of speed modeling to a musician practicing scales. No one turns on the radio to hear their favorite band play an A major scale, and no designer prioritizes CAD speed over quality. But musical scales, like speedy 3D models, aren’t the destination—they’re the steps on the path.
“Practicing the fundamentals and learning the fundamentals is always valuable if you’re learning a skilled trade,” Schnaars said. “We’re giving people a platform where they can practice repetition.”
You don’t have to take Schnaars’ word for it. The most ardent users of TooTallToby.com are emphatic about how much the site has helped them advance their CAD skills.
ChrisBCo, known in the real world as Chris Buerckner, was initially a skeptic of TooTallToby.com. Speed modelers, he thought, were “using all kinds of techniques that would never work in a real project setting.” But after months of Schnaars’ YouTube videos popping up in his feed, the Australian product design engineer said he eventually came around.
“If you take a step back and consider what you are seeing… there is actually some world-class decision-making and efficiency taking place,” Buerckner said. “All that has to be done for this knowledge to be implemented in real projects is for the user to remove the speed element and add in the detail and organizational considerations (how is the model being used, manufacturing processes, etc.).”
Buerckner is now a devoted user of the site and a current quarter finalist in the 2024 World Championship of 3D CAD Speed Modeling.
Has TooTallToby.com improved his CAD skills? “100% yes,” Buerckner said. He’s not alone in that feeling.
“I think that this site is a gold mine,” said Aleksandar Mihajlovski, who goes by the username acesvaba.
A Solidworks user from North Macedonia, Mihajlovski has been hooked on TooTallToby.com since he stumbled upon it in May 2024. He’s completed almost all of the practice models, regularly tunes into Model Monday Live and will soon compete in the quarter finals of this year’s World Championship.
“It’s fun,” Mihajlovski said, needing no other reason to explain his dedication to the site. But there is another reason: TooTallToby.com has helped him become a better CAD modeler.
“I think I doubled my speed,” Mihajlovski said.
It’s a similar story for TooTallToby user MrAlex, aka Aleksejs Babkins. An engineering unit manager at Kronus, a wooden packaging manufacturer in Latvia, Babkins has been using TooTallToby.com since January 2024 and says it has “definitely” improved his CAD skills.
“I rebinded almost all the hot keys on the keyboard, set up many new mouse gestures to speed up work, and also mastered new modes of work in Solidworks,” Babkins said.
None of these passionate TooTallToby users are CAD novices. Buerckner has been using Solidworks for over 14 years as a product designer and consultant. Mihajlovski has been using Solidworks for 16 years as a product engineer, both as a freelancer and supervisor. Babkins has been using CAD for over two decades.
“It’s a pity that in the late 90s, when I began to design in Solidworks, there were no such sites. Then my development would have been much faster,” Babkins said.
The current generation of CAD learners won’t have any such laments. Astoundingly, the number one seed for the 2024 World Championship, an American Fusion user named greatnate08, is a high schooler. He bested the veteran Babkins in a 2–0 set to qualify for the semifinals.
The future of CAD speed modeling
TooTallToby.com has found a unique niche in the CAD world. There’s a devoted core of users who are active in the community, and Schnaars has seen that core steadily grow. He’s excited to continue improving the site, speaking of plans to revamp the practice models app and introduce a new training platform.
The site may evolve, but Schnaars is still motivated by the same goal he started with.
“What we’re trying to do is help engineers practice doing 3D CAD so that they can get better at the fundamentals,” he said. “So they can focus on the engineering—cause I think that’s the more fun part of it.”
One burning question remains. Just how tall is Too Tall Toby?
“I hit my head on many, many things,” Schnaars said. At least he can dodge a question.
