What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

Does anybody know how many people use some sort of CAD software? I know that chief is a little biased but my team would still like to know.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

I haven't met many teams who don't use CAD.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

Try adding a poll to this thread. It will let you collect the data that you want

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

I'm the only one on my team who uses SolidWorks and attends meetings regularly, but we model everything up before building. Between the CAD work and some basic prototyping, we build every mechanism on our robot once this year and had no issues we weren't able to fix without rebuilding the mechanism. Is it necessary? No... but you better have the resources to build and rebuild things when something doesn't fit right.

I plan on holding a SolidWorks course for any of our students who are interested, and hopefully we'll be able to CAD up EVERYTHING on the robot next year. Not having time to plan out mounting holes or gussets was probably the biggest problem we had from the design side.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

There was another thread recently that posed a similar question about whether teams used CAD or whether CAD was essential.

The answer is: you can be a successful team and not use CAD. It is not essential. However, you can also build robots using just hand tools. Power tools are not essential. But of course they are extremely helpful and time saving.

(Hey, we made our robot with only a drill press and miter saw and hand tools. But, we also did use a lot of CAD :D )

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

Here is a poll to get this started

http://www.strawpoll.me/10245924


Results here.

http://www.strawpoll.me/10245924/r

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

I would suspect the vast majority of younger teams (0-3yrs) do not utilize CAD based on my observations.

Our team has used one form or another of CAD since about 2008, prior to that, one of our engineering mentors on the team would actually hand draw (in detail) robot components on plotter paper.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

My team just started thinking about CAD this year. We didn't do any more with it than get the software license from the KOP and think about it at the beginning of the season*. Next year we may use it more, but this year we did not.


*we did draw our arm to scale on paper before manufacturing it, that was a first for us.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

We use Inventor, 90% of our parts are made from a CAD drawing. Also, we use our CAD to direct our CNC mill. CAD is also used mainly on our team to find places where electronics, motors, and pneumatics fit. As a guess, I would say 75% of teams use CAD to help build their robot.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

If your team has access to (and uses) water jet, CNC manufacturing, or 3D printing, then CAD becomes a necessity.

If your hand building; CAD is not strictly necessary. But it helps with planning the robot configuration, and designing some sub components. Mechanical drafting seems to have become a lost skill, but is very useful for configuration development.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

My guess is that the majority of teams do not CAD.

CD polls are skewed towards more successful teams much farther than one would expect. Most low-performing teams don't have a connection to the greater FRC/FIRST community, and operate in isolation.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

Many FRC teams are also "participants" more than they are "competitors." But I think this trend is changing, especially with the growth of districts.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

I don't necessarily think a minority of teams do CAD, but it is definitely a smaller percentage of teams than the poll suggests.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

Another aspect of this discussion which is emerging, is to what extent teams use CAD during their design process. I have seen teams that use CAD to make sure that things fit simply by modeling blocks that are roughly the shape of a mechanism, organizing the blocks and then saying "ok the shooter must be no bigger than the block" and so on.

There is a big difference between modeling a rectangular prism called, "electronics board" and placing individual electronics components.

There are also plenty of teams who model in every fastener, and every hole. As others have mentioned, this becomes more important when parts are being cut with CNC tools.

~DK

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

From what I have been told, 246 didn't start using CAD until 2015. Apparently they just ended up using their prototypes as the final product.

This year, we housed a rookie team in our lab for the later half of the split, and I saw that they didn't use CAD. This is mainly because their robot was just a modified kitbot with a 1 joint arm to help with defenses, so there really wasn't any need for it.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

All of the teams we work with use CAD systems. We have learned a lot from them about whats needed to make it run smoothly. The part some teams tend to forget is that your peripherals are just as important to the workflow as the program and knowledge base the user has. A good mouse/keyboard with certain features can make your life WAY easier. One of our teams uses some weird 3D knob thing that works great with solidworks. When used in conjunction with a Sentinel III mouse it can really speed things up.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

One of our mentors brought in something like this a while back for the team to use for CAD, one of our kids really likes using it; I personally found it bizarre and hard to CAD with, so to each their own I guess, I'll stick with my 3600dpi laser mouse. :rolleyes:

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

I believe you guys are referring to this?

http://www.3dconnexion.com/products/spacemouse.html

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

Different version/brand in my case, but basically the same thing, yes.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

Once you use a 3D mouse, it is hard to go back. It just makes it so simple to rotate and see the side of the part that you need to see.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

3946 does not use CAD systematically.

We have CADded a few assemblies over the years, sometimes with solid works, and sometimes with power point. This year's wheel layout was determined based on "CAD" simulations of crossing the various terrain defenses in power point. Last year's adaptation of dura-omni to the KoP chassis was done in solid works before we built it. The ball pickup for Aerial Assist was laid out in power point.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

Power Point? as in microsoft PowerPoint?.... I'm guessing not :P

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

Obvoiusly I could be totally wrong here, but I would guess that if a team is active enough to be engaged in Chief Delphi, than more likely than not, they will have a cad team.... just guessing

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

I was told that this is the first year the team hasn't done any significant CADing besides what was sent out to a local shop to be machined. You can probably guess what one of our summer projects is.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

Our team just had a fully CADed robot and had our best season ever. I would recomend CADing for it helps plan out what can be done with limited space. At PNW district champs, we learned that there were only about 7 or 8 teams who CAD.
Autodesk Inventor is good.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

Our team has done a full CAD of the robot in SolidWorks the past couple years

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

My team, 2468, rigorously CADs every component of the robot to ensure smooth integration and communication between the design and manufacturing teams (which are distinctly separated on the team).

However, I know that some successful teams like Cryptonite (624) doesn't CAD their robot except for few parts that require CAM. They seem to do well every year anyway though... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adkAmveee6k

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

That seems a little low. How are you estimating that? Are you just counting teams that you know did a complete robot in CAD?

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

FRC 1640 uses CAD (SolidWorks). I believe most teams use CAD.

With the growth of 3-D Printing and CNC/CAM, it is almost indispensable.

From a real world standpoint, it is a tremendously powerful design tool.

But knowing how to CAD is not the same as knowing how to design. CAD's just a tool. Design in the intellectual exercise.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

Can't speak for the person you're asking, but I remember being stunned at the number of teams at Championships who didn't use CAD or only used extremely limited amounts of CAD at the 2013 Championship. You can build some fantastic robots without even a little bit of it.

In Minnesota, significant use of CAD is extremely rare. Only a few teams I talked to have a reasonably complete model of their robot, and the vast majority used it to model maybe a couple of parts.

Personally, while I personally love CAD, and would never design a robot without it, I don't push it. CAD is something you can only really do effectively if you have students/mentors/et cetera who want to do CAD. It takes a significant time investment to become competent, so the best way I've found to get people/teams interested in CAD is to get them excited about performing well and doing well at competition. A little bit of competitive spirit goes a long way.

Edit, to answer the OP:

I'll speak for the teams I have first-hand knowledge of:

2220, while I was on it (11-14), was pretty solid on getting a reasonably complete CAD model when I was on the team. Of course, most of that work ended up being me, but I believe the last couple years they've had a reasonably complete model. When I was on the team it was Creo or Pro/E, with a little bit of Solidworks, Inventor, or AutoCAD for students or mentors who preferred that. Now I believe they're almost entirely Solidworks, but you'd have to ask someone who is currently on the team about that.

2667 had no students doing CAD any of the years I worked with them. I maintained a personal model to check dimensions and explain concepts, but none of the students contributed to that model. This was due to a variety of reasons, but ultimately it worked out decently and now there are some students who are really pushing CAD for next year. I used Creo, they'll probably use Inventor.

9205 (FTC) does a CAD model of everything other than physically correct chain. I've worked with a couple of the students over the past two years to build up enough knowledge that they could probably design a reasonably complete robot in Creo without much or any input from me. This means I get to help with different things :P

Finally, 'Snow Problem (Ri3D) keeps a reasonably complete mechanical CAD model throughout the three days. It's almost all me on that, with a bit of Evan and Ryan contributing, particularly with 3D printing stuff. That's almost all Creo, with a bit of Solidworks for Evan.

I'm pretty sure the heavy CAD use on 3/4 of my teams is the exception, not the norm.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

CAD was essential for our team this year most especially in trying to design components to fit in such a small envelope.....i.e. going under the low bar.
We upped our game in recent years because we were able to get several CAD mentors assisting our students. They also happen to be our former students. :)
CAD has become much more essential before we manufacture anything in our shop and a big part of our system to go from concept discussions to fabrication of parts.
However, we are learning much like many others that just because you can draw something, doesnt necessarily mean it'll work.:rolleyes:
But each subsequent year, we are getting better at it through experience. Definitely worth having CAD as part of our build process.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

In the past, I have used Visio for space claim, intake design and pneumatic cylinder length and placement analysis. We even had a company laser cut a support based on a Visio file. A few students have learned Visio. Its a great 2D tool that can be learned by most students in under an hour and Microsoft has agreements with many school districts for free software.

We are also getting students trained up in Solidworks. This spring we designed a simple product and then 3D printed it. We are moving toward our goal of designing the entire robot before construction.

If you create a survey, some of the things to ask might include:
Years in FIRST?
Have a CAD mentor on the team?
How large is your team (active students)?
What do you use CAD for? (Multiple Selection)
- 3D printing
- Custom frame design
- CNC milling
- Transmission design
- Space Claim
- Overall robot design
- Wire routing
- Other

How did your team get up to speed?
- Books
- Videos
- Mentors
- Help from another team
- Other

Which CAD product do you use?
- Solidworks
- Autodesk
- Visio
- PowerPoint
- ProE
- Creo
- Other

Dave

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

We have decided to really use CAD this year.

Last season a couple people tried to use sketchup to CAD the actual bot but the robot didn't end up working. For the offseason we really got serious and used SW which really helped the team - so if the main design person/captain was not there that day build team still had all the dimensions and an idea of the bot. It also allowed less dedicated members to know how they could help out in cutting/building when they decided to swing by the lab.

In addition, with CADing the entire bot this year, we were able to create an engineering notebook for future generations of the team with all the individual parts and final assembly. Each part (with CAD rendering) and an explanation of why we decided to go with that design hopefully will help future generations make tough design decisions choices.

All in all, CAD was super beneficial to use for our team, helped us all stay on the same page, and helped us not waste too much time with days on end of prototyping. Definitely recommend!

(Plus if you get things specially cut - we get some aluminium pieces waterjet cut - you would absolutely need it!)

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

YES

although in all seriousness, we use Inventor for pretty much everything, we CAD the entire robot as Mechanical builds the robot, and we got up to speed just with practice and the Inventor textbook our mentor has.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

Our team uses SolidWorks for the entire robot and has for three years now. We have a SolidWorks class that is offered at our high school which has helped with some knowledge base of the software.

We have 6 FTC teams with 62 students in our program for ninth and tenth graders. We offer SolidWorks installation for any student or mentor in the program for their personal computer. Many of the students begin to use the software in the designs of their robots due to CNC, 3D printing and laser cutting of parts.

We have had students offer training to other students over the summer is twice a week two hour long sessions to learn the basics. This past Fall, the students held design workshops once a week for 8 weeks to work on design practices and methods.

CAD design takes a time commitment of the team and the students involved.
It has changed our robots over the past few years for the better.

I agree with Glenn's comment on you sometimes design something that cannot be made. You learn by doing though.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

Yes, Microsoft Power Point. I've attached a preview of the slides presenting the option we built.

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

I don't know the precent of teams using CAD but I can say that since we've started using CAD our design process became much more effecient. CAD is not my especialty but I believe that a lot of people on CD would be happy to help!

Re: What Percent of Teams Use CAD?
 

I've found that it's helpful to CAD enough of the bot so you get a general idea to explain to others, but unless you cut an actual part on a CNC it's a waste of time to CAD beyond that. One of the greatest traps you can get stuck in is wasting lots of time on unnecessary details, such as putting in every single bolt, nut, and bushing. Unless there is really limited space there is no need to get realistic CAD models for most things. Using cubes and cylinders when possible, such as representing electrical components, does the job just fine and takes two-thirds less time.