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Accurate Drawing & Design Software for Key Stage 2

Wow...That's Helpful!

TechSoft are keenly aware that Design and Technology in Primary Schools brings an entirely new set of challenges. Software has to be easy to master and must quickly prove itself to be exciting and motivating, especially where content is taught within themes that have their own learning priorities. We have listened carefully to teachers and have taken a long hard look at our well-established Primary Design programme with a clear aim to make it the most helpful, versatile and easy-to-use drawing package you could wish for. The result is 2D Primary and we reckon it’s something with enough ‘wow’ to see it being used for Design and Technology and much more besides.

Drawing and Design

2D Primary can’t be beaten for making accurate project plans. These can include dimensions and can be ‘filled’ in flat colour, shaded (or graduated) colour, or even photo-images of the material they will be made from. Plans can be printed onto label paper to make accurate templates, or pages can be bordered, titled and printed onto regular paper as a record for design folders.

2D Primary makes a great graphic design tool as well. Text, photographs and accurate drawings can all be combined making it ideal for presentation pages, or for creating posters and leaflets. We’ve been careful not to overload the software with too many tools but have included simple ways to change photo-images and trim them to size and shape.

Computerised Manufacture

Using 2D Primary for CAM (Computer Aided Manufacture) takes you onto another level – not only can you draw things, you can make them too! Knife cutters provide the means to cut a vast range of ‘applied media’ to make stickers, badges, or iron-on logos, for example. Project work could involve designing a ‘corporate identity’ for school teams and, with a simple Stika machine, pupils could make the real thing. In the same way, why not produce fund-raising mugs and T-shirts, or even signs for around the school?

Print and Cut

2D Primary has in-built drivers for the Roland Stika, CAMM 1 and Graphtec CraftROBO-TS* machines. The CAMM 1 and CraftROBO-TS will cut card as well as applied media so greeting cards, packaging nets, stencils and ‘card-engineering’ projects all become possible. We have included a ‘layers’ feature as well so that graphics can be on one layer and the shape for cutting on a second. For a typical packing net, the ‘Graphics’ layer will be printed onto card, the printed sheet is then fed into a knife cutter and the ‘Cut’ layer is used to cut out the net. Lining up the graphics with edges to be cut can be done manually but is made very easy using Optical Print Alignment on the CraftROBO-TS and CAMM 1 GX-24 machines.

Drawing with Computers

Most simple ‘paint’ packages work by colouring dots (pixels) on the screen - this looks OK and you can print out the drawing, but that’s about all. 2D Primary is a ‘vector’ package and every line and shape you draw will have a unique mathematical identity defined in terms of coordinates and geometry. You won’t be aware of this when designing, but it means that drawings can be edited, dimensioned and output to a CAM machine. Printed copy will be exactly the right size and not scaled to fit the page. This is the way that most commercial Graphic and Computer Aided Design packages work, so 2D Primary is a great preparation for future learning and provides pupils and teachers with powerful new tools at KS2. The software uses a familiar Windows interface and is logical and easy to use, so pupils and teachers will quickly be up to speed.

Not Just for D&T

You don’t need to be aware of the geometry working for you under the surface of 2D Primary, to be able to create accurate drawings, but it is there and if you want to focus on numeracy then why not? Many Primary schools find it the ideal package to support pupil’s learning in mathematics; shape, space, pattern, size and number. Using 2D Primary to design presentation pages could, of course, be used anywhere in the curriculum.