CAD Drive Design Challenge

[CraigHickman]

Hey all-
I've gotten that design itch, and so I'm gonna throw out a challenge. I'm thinking we set a time period, say 24 hours from when we decide to start the competition, for each individual to fully design a drive system. Then we post a bunch of renders, and have people vote on which is both the coolest and most usable.

I wouldn't really restrict your CAD platform of choice (hence the location of the thread), I only ask that you only post images of stuff you designed inside the time of the competition.

If I were to get this rolling, think there'd be interest?

[cooker52]

If I find time, which would cancel out this weekend.

[AndyB]

I'm up for it. I'll start when you say go.

[Jeff 801]

sounds like fun

[Dan Petrovic]

Haha. I know what you mean about that "design itch"

I made a lego replica of 1114's arm (without the elevator) and 2056's arm (revised for IRI) earlier today (they are almost the same thing).

I've been drawing out various joints and drive systems for this upcoming year.

Pro-E wasn't really my thing, so I don't CAD anything ever. Lego replicas work great, though!

[CraigHickman]

Alright, in order to give those who decided to go for it, the competition will start tommorow morning at 10, PST.

As a slight restatement of the rules, nothing previously designed, except of course motors and/or electronics if you choose to put them in.

Good luck!

[cooker52]

Darn, this would have been good practice, but I have to finish work at the 4-H fair and pack :( Oh well.

[Pavan Dave]

I've never designed anything 'active' with CAD, just random plates and mounts. This seems like a fun opportunity's to learn about designing parts.

Do we have to make EVERY part on our own, or will we be able to use a parts catalog (like the one in ADI)?

[CraigHickman]

Go ahead and use the library. The main thing that I'm hoping to avoid is the whole "oh, I already designed this gearbox, I'll use that" type of scenario. I mean, if that were allowed, I could use one of my 8 gearboxes, or one of my 12 drive systems....

[CraigHickman]

Alrighty, here's my really immensely crappy drive base. I sort of forgot about this thing until like an hour ago, and I have to leave in 20 minutes.... So here it is!

The good news is that it will drive.

One thing to note: there's no tensioning on the chain, as I spent way too much time doing the math provided in a Martin Sprocket catalog on calculating the right distance in between sprockets to not need tensioning. Not sure how it would work on a real bot, but in concept it seems to be pretty nice.

[Pavan Dave]

Alrighty, here's my really immensely crappy drive base. I sort of forgot about this thing until like an hour ago, and I have to leave in 20 minutes.... So here it is!

The good news is that it will drive.

One thing to note: there's no tensioning on the chain, as I spent way too much time doing the math provided in a Martin Sprocket catalog on calculating the right distance in between sprockets to not need tensioning. Not sure how it would work on a real bot, but in concept it seems to be pretty nice.

Do you know how to constrain gears in ADI? :$

[CraigHickman]

Yeah, they come auto-constrained when you make them in pairs in Design Accelerator. If not, then take the work planes and constrain them together.

If they don't exist yet, you'll have to make them at the correct distances in order to let the gear mesh correctly.

[AdamHeard]

One thing to note: there's no tensioning on the chain, as I spent way too much time doing the math provided in a Martin Sprocket catalog on calculating the right distance in between sprockets to not need tensioning. Not sure how it would work on a real bot, but in concept it seems to be pretty nice.

I've seen several teams use that on manipulator and drive chains. Off the top of my head late at night, I only recall 330 .