CAD/design training activities
 

I am making a lesson plan for teaching my team/new members how to use CAD in their designs. My team is not a big fan of CAD and coming into my senior year I hope to change that... Link here
I am open to any suggestions.

Re: CAD/design training activities
 

Just on the side for students willing to learn even more, Adam has made multiple videos for students and others alike to use in helping design as well as develop systems for the team/robot. Some of the topics include elevators, drives, etc. For any team, they can certainly help narrow down certain design aspects with the systems shown. If the students are willing to have us make more, just let us know. We can do our best to answer the questions you guys have.

The link is provided below.

http://www.greybots.com/973-ramp.html

Re: CAD/design training activities
 

Yep, referenced you guys a bit! will make the reference a bit more explicit.

Re: CAD/design training activities
 

One suggestion for you is adding in some drafting/tolerance lessons. You can end up with a great CAD design that could get undermined with poor prints or tolerances.

The most important thing to remember for design is the design work needs to be communicated, which is done through prints. If you can cnc, laser cut, etc, the solid models are the communication, so tolerance is critical with the CAD models.

Understanding the method of manufacturing also helps with this.

Re: CAD/design training activities
 

Good suggestion. I'll add that lesson in once we start making the bots. I have yet to find a good tutorial on tolerances. Have any suggestions? Maybe Adam Heard can make one. lol

Re: CAD/design training activities
 

On 610, we now use a Design Tutorial that includes a number of CAD exercises. They were created by Ryan Tam, our student head of design and manufacturing last year. He has recently graduated, and left us this very useful legacy.

Every first year Design and Manufacturing member is pretty much expected to read this document cover to cover, and to do all the exercises.

The current 610 Design Tutorial can be found here:
http://www.team610.com/wp-content/up...rialsRev10.pdf

It is actively updated, and the most up-to-date link can be found on the team610.com website under "Resources -> Our FRC Designs"

This document was also featured on SolidWorks' Teacher Blog back in February:
http://blogs.solidworks.com/teacher/...olidworks.html

Re: CAD/design training activities
 

It depends on what you want to use CAD for.

If you want to lay out the robot and figure out angles/sizes for shooters, arms, etc, I'd focus on working with assemblies and sketches to figure out geometry. It's a great skill to have.

If you're drawing up parts to be machined in house without CNC equipment, I'd work on creating good drawings. You need to know and indicate which dimensions need to be accurate (stuff like press fits) and which don't matter too much (lightening pattern).

If you're drawing parts to be machined with CNC equipment, focus on methods to make pockets as well as general design methods to make the common FRC aluminum plate with holes in it.

If you're interested in more advanced stuff, you can look into FEA. In FRC, teams often dismiss FEA as being too difficult and too complicated. While it is very difficult to do a perfect setup of all the forces your robot will experience and interpret the results, it can be helpful to use it to compare two different design ideas to see which is stronger. It is very powerful as a comparison tool, even if the forces you input are not accurate. Also, it can point out weak areas pretty effectively.

Re: CAD/design training activities
 

That is a real nice piece of work!
Thanks for sharing, in the spirit of FIRST!

Re: CAD/design training activities
 

Wow that is a very impressive guide. Thank you very much for sharing this! I skimmed through the whole thing just now but I absolutely will read the whole thing. On 4761, we're planning on developing and improving our design team this year and I imagine we will be referencing this often.

Re: CAD/design training activities
 

Yep, great resource. Totally forgot about it until you mentioned it again. I will modify some of the stuff to suit my team better.

Re: CAD/design training activities
 

When you register for SolidWorks sponsorship you will get a link to robot tutorials. SolidWorks, SolidWorks Simulation (FEA), SolidWorks Flow Simulation, and SolidWorks Composer are all based on the Seabotix Robot. The tutorials are short, 2 hrs or less but will give your team an idea about using CAD to design a robot, apply forces and document.

We are working on more tutorials this summer and will be available in the Fall.

I spend alot of time at engineering colleges. One of the reasons for your team to learn SolidWorks is because SolidWorks is not only used in industry but is also used at the college level. In engineering school, you have no time to learn software for it is just expected for you to know it.

The robot off season is a great time for your team to learn new skills.

Re: CAD/design training activities
 

Great and important work

Re: CAD/design training activities
 

I've found with most people who do not know CAD in FIRST that most people kinda shy away from it due to the initial confusion of the software, I know for both Inventor and Soldiworks that once you get used to it (which doesn't take long) things are much easier. I mostly suggest making sure every grasps the basic really well before tearing them loose to much. There are lots of things to help on the web and listed but sometimes it's hard for people to learn from just them, so maybe throw in a overall review session or something along those lines to make sure no one is struggling. Besides that CAD is a great tool and having many people who can do it is very helpful, I've seen a decent amount of teams in my FIRST life with the number of members who can (and will) CAD very low, it makes using the resource more difficult and frustrating. Great training besides that!

Re: CAD/design training activities
 

Will this resource be available for all teams to use?

Re: CAD/design training activities
 

yes, but it is still a work in progress