“I've always drawn. Through drawing, I got into building things I would contemplate and sketch out shapes in my head.” Bruce Bulger

After a recent class a student asked if there was another program besides CAD. As he put it “Is there a CAD lite?” CAD is a program that helps with architectural and engineering problems and has been around forever. It is quite technical and not a great program to just “play” with. At first I said No, but I did come up with something that is close. Sketchup is a piece of free software that has been out through Google since the beginning of this year. It is incredible for building items like buildings and cars. The fun of the push and pull ability rather that knowing exact measurements is fantastic. There are many more features to check out including the wide variety of applicable textures. But its most impressive feature is the ability to embed your creation in Google Earth to make a 3-D map. If you have ever enjoyed using building blocks as a kid, give this one a try.