Does CAD get respect on your team?

[Henry Anthony]

I am wondering if your team considers CAD as an important part of the competition or is there little interest in it?

[Billfred]

For 1293, CAD is essential. We went through several dozen revisions of our hopper and shooter this season, and only wound up with one set of prototype parts that proved useless for Chomp. (Oddly enough, it was the one teaser we put up on Delphi.)

If it weren't for Paul and Mr. Stankovic, our two CAD nuts, we would have run out of room to hold all of our discarded prototypes around week three!

[Swan217]

I am wondering if your team considers CAD as an important part of the competition or is there little interest in it?

Paul Copioli, myself, and the ThunderChickens think that CAD is really important, especially for the students to learn. It's a valuable tool in explaining the design and finding potential problems before actually building anything. In 2005, most of the designing and part and assembly drawings were done by students, which we're very proud of. I only assume that they've taken it to the next level this year?

[sanddrag]

I am wondering if your team considers CAD as an important part of the competition More than you'd ever believe.

[CraigHickman]

Our team considers it the basis of the design process. We don't even touch tools (unless to prototype), until we've designed the entire mechanism of choice in Inventor.

[crazykid234]

It's the same on our team. Everything gets drawn in CAD before we make it, except to prototype. We also use CAD as a valuable way to show judges and other teams how our robot works, especially at competition.

[Katie Reynolds]

Our team considers it the basis of the design process. We don't even touch tools (unless to prototype), until we've designed the entire mechanism of choice in Inventor.Same with #857; before we even think about building it, it's drawn in Inventor.

[Ian Curtis]

Nope. The only thing we CAD'd was our frame, and that was to ensure that the hole were in the right place as it's built out of two folded sheets of 1/8th inch. We used it last year and figured that it was probably the reason why we designed and built our robot in the 240 hours leading to the arrival of the FedEx guy. So we didn't use it this year and not surprisingly, we got a little carried away with protoyping and did the same thing, again. So we could probably use it, just don't get carried away. Also, the two years we CAD'd the robot, the robot didn't look anything like the CAD drawing.

[Daniel Brim]

Not particularly.

Let me tell you, it's really frustrating when you make a part in CAD that works and makes system integration easy and then they put it in the wrong spot, making it a nightmare.

[Koko Ed]

Most definately it is.
CAD was the main focus of the web design team this year and many of the students are encouraged to learn and use the program. It is very important to our robot design process.

[brandy836]

One of the first things we did on our team this year was teach the new kids how to use CAD. Most of them loved it, and we used it for designing everything.

[artdutra04]

The only part on our robot that was CADed this year was our shooter. Everything else was drawn up and designed using graph paper and pencils and other drafting tools. Our team engineer has a whole notebook full of amazingly detailed drawings for almost every part on our robot.

[TimCraig]

There is a copy of Inventor 6 and Inventor 10 on the club computer. Neither has had the authorization code entered. What CAD drawings get done, I do at home.

[KTorak]

I'd *love* to learn how to use it, becuase I dont know how. If I actually could learn how to use it, 1023 would actually have CAD drawings. Instead we just kinda sketch it out...do some sort of prototype (like 2x4s and plywood) then tweak for a final design.

[EricH]

Let me tell you, it's really frustrating when you make a part in CAD that works and makes system integration easy and then they put it in the wrong spot, making it a nightmare.
Ditto. Had a part in one of my drawings that had to go a certain way to avoid interference. It was welded on backwards. Ouch.

Actually, the CAD team (3 of us, 2 of whom had almost current data on what was being built) got some respect this year, in the form of "Can you do this for me?" At one point we had so many people asking that we had overload. Also, the CAD crew had some idea of what the robot would look like before most people did, so one day "Can you help me find a place for the battery?" from one of the electronics people. We used CAD to figure out approximate areas and interference zones, then headed for the frame (on a table nearby) to get a better idea.

[sburro]

I am wondering if your team considers CAD as an important part of the competition or is there little interest in it?
CAD is theonly way to go for 663. Without CAD, your machinist might get mad if you need to add a hole here or there. It is much easier to do when teh part is already dialed in. CAD (solidworks in our case) also helps our team determine how much we weigh. (sually light be 5 lbs). I believe that any project that involves machining should be done in CAD. You willl find out that a "real" engineer is required to build their project in CAD BEFORE it hits the machine shop. There is no such thing as a drill.

[Henry Anthony]

Thank you all for your helpful responses. On 1250, no one even knows there is an Inventor award. I guess that tells you how important CAD is on the team. ;)

In defense of the team, there is a shortage of computing facilities to perform this work so a single designer is doing it at home. More an exercise in documenting the design rather than design to build.

As this was posted in the CAD section, I am not surprised to find that most of the responses were on a positive note. Maybe I'll try in the general forum and see what happens.

Good luck with all your entries!

[wilshire]

I believe the CAD drawings are very important to design. Our mentors however did not think it was. So when we came upon the problem of not having the right wheels because we were making the robot basicly as we went we had run into the issue and had to reorder wheels. Needless to say for all those who don't think its important there is a prime example. That and if you are really savy about using it you can model everything down to bolts and wires and can generally get to know your robot very well even if it is shipped off ;)

[JasJ002]

Inventor important to some extent. There have been plenty of times when we've saved hours of work by using Inventor. But the problem is when you make slight changes like drilling a hole here for weight, or simply throwing a part out and quickly cutting another one takes a lot less time. These quick changes put designers behind the manufacturers, and then catching up with a manufacturing team that usually has 3 or 4 times as many people on the design team it's impossible. Complete robots, including electronics, pneumatics, animations are all things that take so little time compared to Inventor. Also most teams work till the last minute, then when the robot is gone it's impossible to get measurements. All of these factors lead to the impossibility to use Inventor completely. I will say team 103 used inventor a lot. We designed every one of our prototypes, and even used it to lay out a schematic for electronics. This was due to successful communication and working along with our manufacturing guys.

[Bharat Nain]

CAD is the oxygen for engineering. It's the baseline for all that we do -- atleast to start. It helps us see things we would not without designing.

[Steve W]

CAD? What's CAD?

Really our team is starting to use it more. Part of the problem is that we build before they can CAD an idea. As the students improve I am sure that it will become a starting point not a middle ground.

[FourPenguins]

Inventor important to some extent. There have been plenty of times when we've saved hours of work by using Inventor. But the problem is when you make slight changes like drilling a hole here for weight, or simply throwing a part out and quickly cutting another one takes a lot less time. These quick changes put designers behind the manufacturers

I definitely agree here. On MORT, we design a lot of our parts in CAD. (With the exception of our frame which was drawn out and mocked up entirely using cardboard.) We have electrical diagrams, CAD files of any parts that have detailed machining (mostly so we can CNC) and I think that this year it really got out to the masses as both the end effectors and drivetrain teams used CAD people and software to help their design process.
On the otherhand, quick fixes (weight holes, corner rounding, last-minute changes) are done without design work in advance, leaving the CAD team to walk into the shop everyday to ask "What did you change today?"

[edthegeek]

For us, CAD(Autodesk Inventor) was become the golden rule. It has given us two ubercool chassises that are awsome. The arms are a different story. But yes, CAD gets massive props on our team. If you have'nt done so, have you been living under a robot?!

[peaseonearth]

Without Cad on our team, no robot would ever be mad. For the past 3 years now the robot has been completely made on cad before made in real life. This helps do it right the first time and gives the students real life experience in designing parts for most anything.

[Ellery]

Yes CAD is very important on our team. It helps everyone see their ideas and also helps save alot of money when it's time to prototype. I personally don't do much CAD and work but I do do alot for FIRST which helps keep me on top of these skills if I ever need to use them for work.

E

[orelinde]

sadly our robot seemed to be built before cadd was even mentioned. My son was the only one who tried to cadd but it is so hard with 7 sets of hands building and only one cadding. we took lots of pictures but overall as a rookie team cadd was not really used. now Paint on the other hand was used in the design as it is simple, clear, to the point, and everyone on the team understood it instantly. now we are working on the cadd more as a documentation of what the team went through to get what it has now.


I hope that next year CADD will take a larger part in the design but it is hard when all the kids really want to do is build.

[FourPenguins]

sadly our robot seemed to be built before cadd was even mentioned. My son was the only one who tried to cadd but it is so hard with 7 sets of hands building and only one cadding. we took lots of pictures but overall as a rookie team cadd was not really used. now Paint on the other hand was used in the design as it is simple, clear, to the point, and everyone on the team understood it instantly. now we are working on the cadd more as a documentation of what the team went through to get what it has now.


I hope that next year CADD will take a larger part in the design but it is hard when all the kids really want to do is build.
I suggest you guys do some summer classes in CAD because your teams seems really eager to use computer programs to draft designs, but just doens't have the knowledge. Once you know inventor, it's really easy to use, so I think that a few classes from a mentor or student on the team could really help out.

[Daniel Morse]

Team 213 relies on Autodesk Inventor from the beginning until the end of the season. The two student design leaders (a friend and I) are the lead Inventor modelers on the team, and are often doing most of the modeling the parts. I also teach the younger members how to use the program, and I am pleased to say that they were very enthusiastic about it. Inventor is a very powerful and useful tool that has streamlined the efficiency of our manufacturing process.

[plutonium83]

On our team, if you wish to make a major modification to the robot, you must fully draw it in CAD first.

[Anubuss]

I am wondering if your team considers CAD as an important part of the competition or is there little interest in it?

CAD is all well an good, but personaly, our team uses Solid Works, and thanks to one of our engineers, we have a whole computer room with it loaded on every one.

[Daniel Brim]

CAD is all well an good, but personaly, our team uses Solid Works, and thanks to one of our engineers, we have a whole computer room with it loaded on every one.Solidworks is a CAD program.

[T@rek]

lol in our 6 week time , 4 weeks was CADs and 2 weeks were building lol. ironicly none of the CADs worked even though they were perfect plans. and in the end i threw a piece of wood and that worked lol. :cool:

[ICE MAN]

I am wondering if your team considers CAD as an important part of the competition or is there little interest in it?

Are you kidding? Without auto-cad how could we even begin to build our robot. For my team cad is the heart of our success, without it we would surely die. Plus if your team doesn't use cad to design your robot then what do you use?

[Henry Anthony]

Are you kidding? Without auto-cad how could we even begin to build our robot. For my team cad is the heart of our success, without it we would surely die. Plus if your team doesn't use cad to design your robot then what do you use?

Paper and pencil pretty much. Problem is, there are no computers available in our build facility that can run Inventor. Also, very little interest in learning it.

[EricRobodox]

Last year and this year, the two years i have been on the team, we have set building the robot as priority over cad and animation. Its not that we dont like to do it, just we are a student ran team, where we can proudly say that adults did not fabricate one thing on the robot. This year especially because we only had hand tools to build with as ou school got rid of the metal shop and most of the machines in the woodshop.

But, i have an interest in it, im in charge of all the software that comes in, which also makes me the only one on the team that knows how to use it. Hopefully, next year i can get the software up at the school and teach others, in which we can do a CAD/Inventor entry.

So, no, my team does not make it a priority, but i try to make it one.

[Henry Anthony]

...we are a student ran team, where we can proudly say that adults did not fabricate one thing on the robot. This year especially because we only had hand tools to build with as ou school got rid of the metal shop and most of the machines in the woodshop.

Hang in there Eric. I think a lot of teams do not have the best facilities. Ours started in the basement of the school with no tools other than the ones you brought from home. You sound like a motivated person. Try to get Inventor up and running somewhere or at home. It is not that hard to learn. Good luck!

[EricRobodox]

I know it already. Well to design parts. Im not dissing other teams earlier, just we dont have a lot of help others have. And we also are basically one half the team are all new people, so teach them to fabricate as well as trying to build a quality robot in the short time doesnt give us enough time or people to do CAD and Inventor.

I do use it at home. I was able to create our chassis this year, but not much else. I am trying to figure more stuff out with the program to design my go-kart... Small part of it here (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44624)
But, i can make parts, i just dont know how to weld and attach them to other parts. but im trying to learn on my own. Any tutorial would be great, but i cant find that many free tutorials that help me a lot.

[SpaceBoy2000]

Well...depends. The chassis was CADed after it was built by two new guys. I had to CAD basically everything else except the cannon, which was CADed by the new guys when the chassis was finished. I find that CAD helped the most in motor mounts (having preCADed motors meant I can CAD the holes really really fast) and the big lexan hopper (using sheet metal to model the bends made it a LOT easier than winging it). However, stuff like the electronics systems were not CADed. The battery mount and electronics was slapped on. However, the parts that were done on CAD were probably the fastest to be manufactured and assembled. But, when something messed up, didn't work, or just needed modifications, it usually isn't done in CAD, as it is easier to just change it on the spot. That said, CAD was key to getting the general design down, especially to see how different mechanisms fit together. This year, we were able to complete the majority of the robot a few days before ship date, allowing us to troubleshoot and tinker with the design before the competition. CAD does give a speed bonus I believe, at least in the beginning. However, due to a lack of personnel, it cannot keep up with the manufacturing after a while, thus, it loses importance later on.

That and the fact that school work piles on near the end of the season. Since almost all the major parts are completed, I spend less time on CAD, and more on keeping up my grades, so the robot deviates more and more from the CAD.

[EricH]

But, i can make parts, i just dont know how to weld and attach them to other parts. but im trying to learn on my own. Any tutorial would be great, but i cant find that many free tutorials that help me a lot.Have you tried the Inventor tutorials? They are under the "Help" menu.

[EricRobodox]

I looked at them, but there are so many it gets a little overwhelming, and also, from trying to learn 3ds max that way, they tell you how to do it, but i like it when you can see it be done, then imitate. I have found a lot of video 3ds max tutorials, not many for inventor. Also, i dont find doing small little parts on different projects much of a tutorial. I like learning one basic at a time and build one full project from the scratch to learn. I just find i learn faster that way.

[ChrisH]

I looked at them, but there are so many it gets a little overwhelming, and also, from trying to learn 3ds max that way, they tell you how to do it, but i like it when you can see it be done, then imitate. I have found a lot of video 3ds max tutorials, not many for inventor. Also, i dont find doing small little parts on different projects much of a tutorial. I like learning one basic at a time and build one full project from the scratch to learn. I just find i learn faster that way.

I've been doing CAD professionally for over 20 years and I'm still learning how to do new stuff. The systems now are capable of so much more than when I started out. But the only reason I can still do stuff is I kept up my skills. Sometimes that means going out an looking for CAD work to do, I call it "proficiency time"

The important thing is to practice, practice, practice. Draw little do-hickies that just look cool. Try drawing a Kline's bottle (just don't be suprised if Inventor freaks out, you might have to trick it to get that one to work). Try designing next year's drive train. Try a new kitchen gadget. Hmmm Maybe I'll try designing a decent egg beater for my wife and pop it into an SLS machine to build it.

[Henry Anthony]

Try drawing a Kline's bottle (just don't be suprised if Inventor freaks out, you might have to trick it to get that one to work).


I would love to try a Kline's bottle! But what is a Kline's bottle?

[Arkorobotics]

CAD is our god.

[EricH]

I would love to try a Kline's bottle! But what is a Kline's bottle?
It's a bottle with only one side. Don't laugh, it's true. It looks like a normal bottle, except the neck curves around into the interior and meets the bottom. Then it curves to the edges of the bottle and leaves the bottom with a bell-shaped interior. I don't have a picture, but good luck making one!

[JasJ002]

Last year and this year, the two years i have been on the team, we have set building the robot as priority over cad and animation.
Our teams set the robot as priority because it is priority. Your supposed to run your team as a business. Sponsors are other companies that invest in your product. Shipdate is your teams deadline to finish the robot. This is why we put so many awards and prizes behind the robots. How many regional awards go to teams with good robots, and how many regional awards to teams with good Inventor and Animation work? FIRST started as a robotics competition and that's where it's roots lie. Hopefully, as time passes, Inventor will become a stronger part of FIRST, maybe be a regional award in coming years. With how FIRST, and engineering technology develops we could easy see teams have design teams match, in size, manufacturing teams. But that is all the future, for now we have to work to spread our message to try and make our departments heard. Your teams, along with FIRST, will gain more respect for CAD when we put effort into showing everybody our products. Display Inventor parts in team newspapers, tours, ect. That is how Inventor and CAD will become respected not only in our teams but FIRST as well. :D

[EricH]

How many regional awards go to teams with good robots, and how many regional awards to teams with good Inventor and Animation work? ...Hopefully, as time passes, Inventor will become a stronger part of FIRST, maybe be a regional award in coming years.
Where have you been? There are two awards for animation and Inventor right now, and the animation award has three categories. Inventor only has one category. And that's just without using it for the robot; if you win one of the technical awards, you may need it badly, according to Section 10 of the game manual.

[JasJ002]

Where have you been? There are two awards for animation and Inventor right now, and the animation award has three categories. Inventor only has one category. And that's just without using it for the robot; if you win one of the technical awards, you may need it badly, according to Section 10 of the game manual.

Look at my quote more closely I said a regional competition. Theres only one animation award at regionals. Theres no inventor award at regionals. Robot awards include driving tomorow's technology, industrial design, Highest rookie seed, 1/2 imagery,quality, innovation in control, regional finalist, regional champion, and creativity. Given yes you might want inventor in order to publish but I dont' think that's everybodies top priority. Most teams want to win awards, and the best way to do that is to create an innovative robot. Like I said earlier if we make our presence known more awards will come. Oh and by the way EricH last year I lead the team that won the Inventor award at championships last year I do know a little something about the award.

[FourPenguins]

The important thing is to practice, practice, practice. Draw little do-hickies that just look cool.
I second that. The best way to learn Inventor is by doing. I have little use for the prepackaged Inventor tutorials, but I learned a lot from the video tutorials found on AutoDesk Streamline (https://projectpoint.buzzsaw.com/first).
username: (public)
no password required

(More info on this is the Inventor Award section of this year's game manual.)

[Bill_Hancoc]

I think CAD has some respect on our team but since we are a team with limited machininf capabilties we dont do cad first since we just use inly a few power tools. I thnk our cad team gets respect since they have the full robot in cad and in my opinion i looks great (it also takes 15+ mins to save)

[PIRATECAPTIN]

No they do not. Our robot is already gone and were still trying to finish the CAD! They didn't respect in FLL and they are not respecting it now.

[negfrequency]

I am wondering if your team considers CAD as an important part of the competition or is there little interest in it?

Initially, i must admit that i looked at CAD as a pretty pathetic part of the team. I thought it wasnt really contolling anything, but we did have one kid who had some REALLY different ideas, and made some good visualizations to explain them. Despite the fact that we never used them, they were seriously taken into consideration above other peoples designs because he had displayed how it could work, not just explained, capturing the larger audience.

I still have people on my team who think that i do nothing, but after working with the one kid for the animation award and winning the award in the fingerlakes regional, we got a lot more respect. I think that our team realizes now the importance of a CAD system working in a company environment, and the potential it has. I think that anyone going into the engineering field will realize the importance of CAD in their college years because it certainly has an impact.

[negfrequency]

Oh and by the way EricH last year I lead the team that won the Inventor award at championships last year I do know a little something about the award.

I have to give you points man. The autodesk inventor visualization award is my favorite, and i missed out on it last year. I will probably devote 90% of my life to that award next year. the other 10% will be probably eating. Sleeping is out of the question.

[Libby Ritchie]

Our CAD sub-team has gained a LOT of respect over the years, especially this year. We have been very impressed with the talents and abilities of our CAD kids this year and they were very valuable to the team. A lot of their skills have been gained through the Project Lead the Way curriculum of Greenfield-Central HS. The teachers at GC have been a huge asset to our team and we value what they do to help our team!

[Chris Marra]

This was our first year seriously CADing all season, and a lot of people were very excited that we were doing it. While not a lot of people had interest in doing it, all of the kids who had learned CAD in a class or pre-season were very excited to be doing it and getting on the team, and everyone else respected their attempts and encouraged them. It never really got used by the engineers and build team that extensively, but everyone was very pleased with their first attempt at such a large CAD project, since no one was a CAD master at the begining. We're really looking forward to trying it again next year and using it a lot more.

[Mr. Freeman]

No one on our team uses CAD. Occasionally when we need a small part machined one of the mentors will make a CAD drawing simply because a machinist needs something more than a verbal description to work off of.

I know that my dad (one of the mentors) uses pro/e but there's really no way for any of us to be trained on pro/e because it's the one machine at his office that we could use.

No one has really been able to figure out how to make inventor work. The tutorials just don't seem to help that much.

I'm interested to know how other teams can't live without it.

[Eric Scheuing]

Let's just say the mentors <3 us.

[techtiger1]

1251 uses Inventor and teaches it to our younger students, because through the two years we have really used CAD as a team it has proved to be a wonderful thing for us. We also use CAM and think that computer aided anything is good. We wanted to submit an inventor award this year but due to some poor Inventor material specifications and not paying attention we ended up overweight which prompted a lot of lat minute design changes which killed the Inventor award submission idea, were definitely going to use CAD next year and plan on submitting for the Inventor award.

-Drew

[=Martin=Taylor=]

On our team CAD gets a lot of respect, but barely anyone knows how to use it.

This was the first year in quite some time that our team designed the entire robot in CAD. The funny thing was... well... we.... errr... designed the robot after we built it... yeah...

The reason? We wanted to try out for the Autodesk Inventor award and also hoped to put the drawings in our publication (if we won it).

This may sound silly but you wouldn't believe how much I learned from this project. If you really want to learn Inventor sit down and try to CAD something that is already built (also keep a pillow handy to punch when you get frustrated :mad: :D ).

Check out the bot!
http://www.team100.org/about/autodesk/robot/robot.php

[Paul Copioli]

Let's put it this way: CAD should be an important par tof your team.

Otherwise, you are missing out on a significant part of the modern engineering cyle. Can a FIRST robot be designed without it? Absolutely. Should it be designed without it? Not if one of your goals is to expose your students to the entire realm of engineering.

Team 217 places a priority on CAD. Specifically, we teach our students how to use Solidworks and then we design 95% of the robot in SW prior to building anything. In most cases we give some of our sponsors the solid model and they build the part from the student designed model with no drawing. All of our sheet metal is designed this way.

So, yes, our CAD gets respect.

[Wayne C.]

nothing gets built without CADs

WC :cool:

[techtiger1]

nothing gets built without CADs

WC :cool:

I second that thats how it should be.

[sirbleedsalot]

Well not really. We have several hurdles to jump before it would get used to design the robot. Good tech support from the school (they say the computers are too fast to run inventor and we can't install software without their permission). Several students that would want to learn it from just books and on line tutorials (people like to be taught by a real live person). And finally nobody has a problem with the way we do things now, which is on the chalk board, with verbal descriptions and discussions (why fix something that is not broken)

[negfrequency]

k so my team just got some really $@#$@#$@#$@#$@#$@#$@# news.

Our CIMS class was doing field trips to CAR, a manufacturing company that mass produces parts are designed for the automotive industry mostly. They said that any parts that we can fully dimension and produce on a CAD system and hand to them theyll make it for us free or extremely ceap of cost.

It just goes to show how much more CAD is becoming usefull, because now we can use ou models to make parts. Its great