This week’s selection is “Mastering Fusion 360: 28 Step-By-Step Projects for Beginners in 3D Printing, Prototyping, and Making” by Jake O Sugden an d Joshua Manley.
There are plenty of 3D CAD tools on the market, but one that the 3D print community is especially fond of using is Autodesk’s Fusion 360 product. It’s a full-featured tool that is suitable for professional use, but accessible to anyone via Autodesk’s free licensing options.
Because of Fusion 360’s power, it isn’t always the easiest tool to learn. There are many features that can take considerable time to discover and learn, and this can be a barrier to some new to Fusion 360.
Most people in the 3D print community tend to learn slowly: after learning the basics, new learnings occur when needed during a design. That approach works, but it can be quite slow.
Another approach is to do a deep dive, and that’s what this book is all about. It’s organized as 28 “step-by-step projects” that use Fusion 360 in different ways, but these are not just a pile of projects.
The authors have literally used the step-by-step approach: each project adds something and builds on prior steps. By proceeding through the projects in order, one could absorb considerable knowledge of Fusion 360 at a very good pace.
That’s not all. The authors explain another very cool feature:
“In addition, we’ve reimagined book learning by incorporating a private online discussion forum linked to each project where you can ask questions, get help from us and the community, and show off what you make. That way, if you get stuck, you’re not left Googling for hours to try and find a solution.”
While the book covers many of Fusion 360’s basic and advanced features, it does not cover generative design and simulation. These are highly advanced topics that one might consider learning after going through this book.
The authors say the sum of the projects yields “45-90” hours of work for the reader, and that seems like a reasonable amount of time to become proficient in Fusion 360 for basic design tasks.
If you’re looking for a relatively quick way to learn Fusion 360, this book could be for you.
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Hey Kerry,
Josh here, co-author of the book. Thanks for the feature!
Cheers,