Re: [DFTF] The Question of CAD
 

I would be surprised to see a school district block access to the dropbox website. I was even able to install the client on a school computer, without admin privileges. The convenience and ease of use of dropbox is second to none IMHO.

Re: [DFTF] The Question of CAD
 

I've never been able to consistently use a 3D mouse. For whatever reason, I just prefer to have my hands on the keyboard and my other hand on the regular mouse. I felt like it almost took more time to constantly take my hand off the keyboard, adjust the view with the 3D mouse and then put my hand back on the keyboard. It's definitely a personal preference/feel thing!

-Brando

Re: [DFTF] The Question of CAD
 

I've been a big supporter of the 3d mouse for a while. I've got one at work, and one at home. With the basic Space Navigator, you only get two short cut keys on the 3d mouse itself. With the higher end 3d mice, you get a boat load more programmable shortcut keys. I rarely go back to the keyboard at all anymore.

At 2056, we use Solidworks(as well as in my professional life). I started off using Inventor years ago, but switched and never looked back.

I've never been a big fan of multiple designers on the same project. You really need clearly defined limitations and interfaces if you are going to have different designers designing different sub assemblies on the robot.

It's been my experience that the vast majority of teams don't use CAD software to drive their design. Most teams lack a competent enough designer to really get the most out of their CAD Software.

Unless you have the manufacturing capabilities to get parts fabricated with an extremely quick turn around time, you really don't have weeks and weeks to play with the CAD model.

So what am I really trying to say? Don't waste too much time struggling with a CAD package for the sake of drawing it beforehand if you're not competent enough with the software to really get the full benefit of it. Sometimes you just need to make the part. That being said, if you are an experienced user, I really believe CADing the entire robot is hugely beneficial... if you don't have to spend weeks doing it.

Our typical timeline goes something like this. By the Wednesday of week 1, we finalize the conceptual design. By the Wednesday of week 2, the full robot model is "done", and we start fabrication. I say "done", because we all know that things always change as the season goes on, but the model always gets updated with these changes. We always make changes between ship and regionals or Championship. Having an accurate and updated model makes planning for changes much easier, and when we do unbag the robot, the upgraded mechanisms or parts fit the first time, and don't require a ton of fiddling to get running.

Why do we push so hard to have a model done by the middle of week 2? We currently don't have access to resources to get really quick turn around time on parts. We also like to have a practice robot running by the end of week 3, or early week 4. So to fit all this in, we need to have drawings out by the middle of week 2. If at some point, we do secure faster machining resources, we will push back our design release accordingly.

Re: [DFTF] The Question of CAD
 

In my opinion which CAD program you use really shouldn't matter. What I mean by that is that rather than teaching how to use software you should really be teaching the principles of CAD and drafting in general. I have used Inventor, Solidworks, ProE, Solid Edge, AutoCAD, Google SketchUp, and a few others. I can switch betweeen all of them relatively easily. When I started learning CAD (and now how I teach CAD to team members), we started with drawing by hand, then we move on how to use the various features, and so on. Basically it is just how to use CAD in general, because CAD is basically the same except for the user interface (and the more advanced features of the software).

But in general I think that making use of the Autodesk student website to get the software is the easiest way to get them using the software. if you can get solidworks to donate licenses that's even better because it runs the faster than Inventor on slower computers. However I think that which software you use really doesn't make a big difference if they are learning how to use CAD rather than just how to draw in a specific program.

I personally prefer to use Inventor because its free for students and they can download it at home on their own computer.

Re: [DFTF] The Question of CAD
 

This is a good point, practice makes perfect.

On the other hand, I think Solidworks is the more user friendly piece of software, and a much more marketable skill. Small and medium firms are dominated by Solidworks, and CATIA is very popular amount larger companies (Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier, etc). Dassault Systemes makes both Solidworks and CATIA, so there is a significant amount of carry-over (I've been told). I interviewed with a Boeing structures manager and they were much more excited about Solidworks experience than NX6.

Re: [DFTF] The Question of CAD
 

Joe,

I am going to throw a monkey wrench in your decision to use Solidworks....PTC offers money, that stuff your team doesn't have right now, to teams that apply for the grant, and use PTC products.

www.ptc.com/go/first for more information.

Re: [DFTF] The Question of CAD
 

The form says the deadline is September 30, but I've heard that they've extended the deadline until this Friday.

Re: [DFTF] The Question of CAD
 

Another vote for Solidworks.

We contacted them and just recieved our 2012 discs and licences. Having used various CAD softwares before; Inventer since 2004 (I'm a PLTW kid)... then ProE, UG NX, SolidEdge, in classes at college, making the switch to Solidworks for the FIRST time last year was fairly simple.

Inventer and Solidworks to me are the most user friendly at a young age, a couple of our kids picked Solidworks up in one single session of training.

One thing to take into concideration is if one of your sponsors uses a specific software, designing in the same can make things easier (in our case, solidworks = what our sheetmetal guys use).

Re: [DFTF] The Question of CAD
 

They would have to offer a lot of money for it to even be worth considering teaching all our kids to use their product, imo.

The learning curve is so much steeper than SW/Inventor.

Re: [DFTF] The Question of CAD
 

It is also worth working out how you are going to keep track of all your CAD files. I know a couple of teams, mine included, use SVN to revision our CAD files. This lets us keep track of what is the latest revision of the robot, and go back to previous versions easily. The CAD software packages have tools available as well. SVN is accessible over HTTPS, so it should be available on most locked down school networks.

Re: [DFTF] The Question of CAD
 

We have a sub team in which all we do is CAD etc. I learned Pro-E 2 summers ago and now I'm teaching about 7 or 8 kids each week how to use the software and PTC has many many learning tutorials which make it pretty easy to learn.

Re: [DFTF] The Question of CAD
 

I started my adventures in CAD with Inventor 5 (love it, runs great on old hardware), and stuck with it through 8, 10, and 2010 which I still use. I suppose this year I'll be making the move to Inventor 2012 for FRC, although I'll still be using 2010 in the classes I teach. I took a brief break from Inventor while in college during which time I used Solidworks 2004, 2007, and 2008. I found Solidworks 2008 to be very slow running. However, during that time I regarded SolidWorks as being a much better program than Inventor, especially on the drawing side of things.

These days, I stick with Inventor simply for the reason that my school has a license, it's easy to get for home use, easy to learn, and it has a lot of educational ties. Also, it works well for my purposes. The downside? Hardly anyone in industry has ever heard of it. :-(

A year ago when I had a set of very old computers I needed CAD on, I investigated ProE and started going through their self-study certification training. I found certain tasks which are natural and very simple in SolidWorks or Inventor to just be atrocious in ProE, and quickly gave it up. I found its interface and work-flow to be rather archaic.

Re: [DFTF] The Question of CAD
 

Interestingly, Pro/E has an even more archaic interface mode: the menu manager (vestiges of which were still in WF5.0). It was actually quite efficient, once you knew where to find the options. Failing that, it was rather frustrating.

The current icon-based tabs are decent as well, but do take some getting used to—though no more so than Solidworks' custom ribbon, I would imagine. Either way, the Pro/E workflow is very good at enforcing robust geometric definitions, but tends to be much less helpful when you want to leave things undefined.

And at least in my experience, Pro/E can run on ridiculously underpowered hardware. In 2003, the first computer I installed it (Pro/E 2001) on was a Pentium II running at 450 MHz with 384 MB of RAM and an ATI Rage Pro. It worked great. I've had no trouble running Pro/E WF3.0 on a Pentium 4 2.8 GHz with a Radeon 9600 or an HD 3650. No such luck with Inventor; no version of that software has worked acceptably well on that computer. (I ran SolidWorks on a comparable computer with a FireGL; it was fine.)

Re: [DFTF] The Question of CAD
 

We applied. And you are right, if they give us the bucks, then it swamps other considerations, but failing that, I think that SolidWorks is a good choice.

Thanks everyone for the great input.

Joe J.

Re: [DFTF] The Question of CAD
 

I guess I helped put you in competition with us for the same funds - but that's the spirit of FIRST.