Study guide — what to focus on

This module is curated — the teaching is a top free course (linked in the card above); our job is to point you at the right things, make you prove it, and certify you.

The plan

1. Watch the course (the card above). You don't need to memorise every click — aim to understand the ideas below and build a couple of the daily parts yourself.
2. Focus on these — they're what the check tests and what you'll use for real:
   • The sketch → feature workflow — almost every solid starts as a 2D sketch you then turn into 3D.
   • The four core tools: Sketch, Extrude, Shell, Fillet — enough for ~90% of parts and most enclosures.
   • Sketch constraints (coincident, parallel, tangent, equal…) and dimensions — how you lock a shape's intent so it stays correct when values change. Aim for fully defined sketches.
   • Parametric modelling — named user parameters + the timeline/history, so changing one value (say wall = 2 mm → 3 mm) updates the whole part.
   • Enclosures & fit — using shell for walls and adding a little clearance/tolerance so lids, ports, and boards actually assemble.
3. Prove it in Forge (next section) — apply the enclosure-modelling ideas to a real fitted part.
4. Take the K-Check to earn your certificate.

Why this connects to building real products

CAD is where a product stops being an idea and becomes a shape that has to fit real hardware. The habits this course builds — think in sketches and parameters, shell for walls, leave clearance so parts mate — are exactly the habits Forge's 3D part designer (Prototype) applies when it generates a fitted enclosure from a description. When you ask Forge for a shell around a PCB with a USB-C cutout and two buttons, it's making the same sketch/extrude/shell/tolerance decisions you just learned. Knowing them lets you read what Forge produced, judge whether the fit is right, and adjust the design instead of taking it on faith.

Time to apply it. The course taught you how a real part becomes a shelled, toleranced enclosure; now let Forge's 3D part designer build one so you can inspect it.

Send the prompt below and it opens Forge's 3D part designer with the description already filled in — generate the part and study the result: the fitted shell and wall thickness, the side USB-C cutout, the two top buttons, and how it leaves clearance so a board and lid would actually seat.

As you look it over, connect it back to the course: which faces started as sketches, where would you add a fillet, and which dimensions would you turn into parameters to resize it? That mapping — CAD skills ↔ a real generated part — is the whole point.