A coworkers starting guide to using Dynamo, tips needed

Revit
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Hi all,

At the company i work i’m the only one who uses Dynamo for repetitive tasks. The office now wants to change this (luckily).

I’ve been asked to show some coworkers around in Dynamo and talk about the basics etc. Basically just give them a head start in the process of learning Dynamo through trial and error.

Now i’m trying to come up with topics for discussion and what to get them started on.

I wanted to at least talk about the following:

  • Ways of selecting model elements (through dynamo or by selecting in revit)

  • Managing lists, talk about when its important to manage list structure and what cases allow for just flattening it all for example.

  • reading, and modifying parameter values.

  • The docs of course :slight_smile:

  • Small exercise with geometry

If you look back to the learning process, what would you have wanted to be told or what do you think would be helpful to show my coworkers to get them started? i intend to run through several exercises where they have to do everything themselves while I talk them trough the process.

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Thats great…Managing list :wink: and object types, string , integer, double etc…boolean, sorting [by keys] etc. i would say :wink: but all is importent…but the most importent i think is just have fun with it :wink:

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Ah yeah object types also a very important one, adding it to my list :slight_smile:

But you are absolutely right, having fun with the exercises is the most important of all. If the first experience with Dynamo isn’t fun, the barrier to start using it gets a lot larger…

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yeah without that nobody will learn :wink:

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@Garbage_Collector ,

it`s also about the attitude of your coworkers… to get a certain level - you have to go thrue pain caves and vallies of tears…

f.e. to get “Chi” “Qi” in Kunfu you need 20 years of hard excercise… and first excerse is breathing 2 hours before sunrise thrue the nose… 6 months late you get the second excercise :wink:

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Very true! i assume almost all of us on this forum got to the point where we’re at by being persistent and trying to solve our issue…
Not sure how to get a two hour long breathing exercise approved though :stuck_out_tongue:

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hehe yeah thats how i start ;9 :wink: one thing if it for revit, it helps a lot be a good user first, but you dont need be expert :wink:

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I usually start with the Dynamo Primer and add to it.
So I go over data types… Spend a fair bit of time on Get and Set… And also explain bool masks, that one confuses people at first.

Then if they’re still interested I explain lists… That scares most of them off. :rofl:

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Oh and I set a little task for them to work through. For example I demo how to do something but then get them to apply it.

So for get and set I explain that and filtering… Then I ask them to get all internal doors in a model that are on the first floor and change the numbers. (for example)

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I used the inpiration of the users themselves.
Looking for something of interest on youtube and buildz (zach kron) and trying to replicate it.

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I have my own ‘course’, as do many who educate others on the topic for a living.

Much of it can be found in the Dynamo Office Hours series on YouTube. It’s like 53 hours of content, but you can grab the relevant bits and whittle it down to ~16 hours.

My one bit of advice is to first inspire (you’ll be able to do this), introduce the UI (here is how to build), then build a foundation education (here is what you need to know), and then attempt (follow along). Start with core, then move to Revit interaction, then scripting, then scaling and finally onto development.

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