Getting Solidworks

[JorgeReyes]

Does anyone know if it is possible to get Solidworks for free as an FRC student. I am thinking of switching over to Solidworks from Inventor. Do teams that use solidworks get it for free?

[R.C.]

http://www.solidworks.com/sw/education/robot-student-design-contest.htm

[magnets]

Googling "FRC Solidworks" and clicking the first link brings you here:
http://www.solidworks.com/sw/education/robot-student-design-contest.htm

You can apply to get solidworks for your team. If you apply, you'll get it.

I do recommend the switch to solidworks. I made it, and I'm happy about it.

[JorgeReyes]

Yeah I intern at a university and find it a lot better than inventor. The problem is that we have 3 mentors from autodesk...

[cadandcookies]

Yeah I intern at a university and find it a lot better than inventor. The problem is that we have 3 mentors from autodesk...

Play to your strengths. Solidworks, Inventor, and Creo are all completely viable in terms of being able to effectively use CAD in FRC. They each come with their strengths (Solidworks and Creo are used in industry, Inventor has a bunch of educational resources), but if you have mentors who know Inventor (and aren't just sticking with it because they happen to work at AutoDesk), take advantage of that resource.

If it comes down to it, you can use both in the team. Team 2220 has some parts of the team that use Creo (because we've been using it since 2009 and have a lot of support from PTC), and some parts that work in Solidworks and then export to Creo when they have finished models. It's a bit of a pain, but it keeps the two groups of engineering mentors on our team happy. Heck, we once had a guy that did all his design in Sketchup (ok, maybe I didn't particularly like him after a season of having to deal with re-modelling all of his parts, but he was stubborn like that...)

Just make sure that you sit down and discuss it-- if you really think Solidworks is the best path going forward for your team, it's still not worth losing three technical mentors due to a heavy-handed delivery.

[JorgeReyes]

I found a free 60 day Solidworks license. I think this will be perfect for me. After it ends I will probably buy the $100 one year student license

[Cory]

I found a free 60 day Solidworks license. I think this will be perfect for me. After it ends I will probably buy the $100 one year student license

Why would you do that? Solidworks will provide copies good for one year for FREE to your entire team. All you have to do is fill out the previously linked form.

[Joe195]

Good! SolidWorks is much better in my opinion.

[mplanchard]

Teams you can apply for 1 year sponsorship at www.solidworks.com/FIRST

Last year we sponsored over 800 FIRST teams with SolidWorks software.

The 60 day is a special promotion for summer camps. If you have robot camp, you can use this for your little campers.

As a team member, go for the 1 year. Also FIRST teams will receive:
SolidWorks (Premium - includes photorealistic rendering, animation, toolbox library)
SolidWorks Simulation Premium (stress and thermal analysis of parts and assemblies)
SolidWorks Flow Simulation
SolidWorks Plastics
SolidWorks Electrical (more is coming with a new electrical kop Fall2014)
SolidWorks Composer (technical documentation great for assembly instructions)

Once you register, you will get a link to SolidWorks robot tutorials.

100's of tutorials are also inside the software but the robot tutorials are a good place to start.

To customize SolidWorks with the KOP, download the 2014 KOP.
1. Click the Design Library in the Resource Pane on the right side of the Graphics window.
2. Click Add File Locations.
3. Browse to your 2014 KOP Folder.
4. KOP bitmap images are displayed in the Design Library.
5. Create a new Assembly.
6. Drag components from the Design Library into the Assembly.

[yara92]

My team using SW free since 2009, it is vary helpfull