Build Faster in Tinkercad with Grouping and Duplicating

Hi, it’s Jacob here, and in this short QuickTip about Tinkercad, I’m going to show you how you can group together objects and then duplicate them to save a ton of time when you’re creating more complex builds.

Here I’ve got a single disc on my workplane, and I want to make a column to create a large building, like the Pantheon or a Roman temple. I want to build one column with a bit more detail and then group it so I can make multiple copies.

I’m going to grab a couple more shapes to make this look more like a column. Actually, what I can do is copy and paste the shape I’ve already got. If I tap on my existing shape and look at the top toolbar, I can either copy and paste it or press Duplicate to make a new copy straight away.

At this point, I’ll resize it and position it where I want it to go. I went over this in my first Tinkercad video, so do check that out if you’re not sure how this works. You can see I’m starting to build up the shape of a column here.

As I do this, I’m going to use the Align feature on the top toolbar. This lets you align objects along different axes. I’m going to align mine to the centre of the X and Y axes, which means the discs are stacked perfectly in the column.

The final part of the column itself is to add one more cylinder and stretch it out. I now want to align three objects together. All I need to do is tap each object in turn and they’ll all be selected.

With all three selected, I can press Align again and line them up just like before. While they’re selected, it also makes sense to group them together. I can do that using the Group button here.

Once grouped, I can move, resize and scale the column as a single object. I can always ungroup it later if I need to, but for now, having it as one unit is perfect. I’ll move it off to the side of the workplane.

Now I’m going to press Duplicate to make a second column. At first, it’s placed in exactly the same position as the original, so I’ll drag it sideways to create some space between them.

Now that I’ve got two columns, I can show you one of my favourite features in Tinkercad. If I duplicate the column again, Tinkercad predicts where I want it to go. It looks at the spacing between the first two and automatically places the next one in line.

If that’s not what I want, I can always move it. But if it is, I can simply press Duplicate again and again, and it will keep placing the columns perfectly for me.

If I then want to move all five columns at once, I can tap to select them one by one. With all five selected, I can drag and drop them together. I could even group them again, duplicate that group, and end up with ten columns if I wanted to.

The final step for me would be to place a block across the top of all the columns to form the base of the building. And just like that, I’ve got the foundations of a much larger structure.

So that’s a quick guide to grouping and duplicating objects in Tinkercad. I’ve made a playlist of other Tinkercad QuickTips covering things like augmented reality, the Scribble tool and using holes, so do check that out. Click the link on the end screen and I’ll see you soon for another Tinkercad QuickTip.