Please recommend software.

[old man emu]

If you are looking in the areas inhabited by Solidworks and AutoCAD, also look at Rhino 5. If you are engineers, how are you creating your designs now?

Since you are associated with a college, the best solution for you is an inter-faculty team. Go to the Graphic Design people and see if someone there wants to team up with you.

Before you go investing in high end CAD, try playing around with some of the open source stuff.

Old Man Emu

[neep]

I have the same question, but different purpose. I'm a not a pro but want to design wearable casings for electronics, that sort of thing. I have tried OpenSCAD but the numbers make me dizzy. SketchUp I have used in the past but find kind of a horrible program to use. Any recommendations appreciated. I'm on a Mac, BTW.

[JSenior]

As above - Autocad is free for education. Solidworks/Spaceclaim etc are $50 a year or so. Your options are pretty endless so it all depends on what the requirements are (what sort of 3D Models.) I wouldn't go buy 30 seats without at least one person being proficient in it and knowing it's the correct program.

I have the same question, but different purpose. I'm a not a pro but want to design wearable casings for electronics, that sort of thing. I have tried OpenSCAD but the numbers make me dizzy. SketchUp I have used in the past but find kind of a horrible program to use. Any recommendations appreciated. I'm on a Mac, BTW.

I'd recommend you try designspark Mechanical - It's free, powerful and has a much smaller learning curve than most CAD programs.