[Madison]

Okay, a few things -

First, did everyone receive their copies of the software already??? We've yet to receive ours, and we aren't sure if that's unusual.

Second -

I've finally had the chance to play with a copy of Inventor kindly provided by the nice folks at FESTO. I have something of a love/hate relationship with it.

First, why I dislike it:

I'm used to AutoCAD - so, Inventor is backwards and upsidedown to me.

I'm used to AutoCAD - I can't stress enough how differently the two software packages work.

Making every bit as a separate part, and then placing them into an assembly is a little unusual.

Why I like it:

It's disgustingly clever. It really does work like I do, starting with a rough sketch and taking that initial idea all the way through to finished product.

It has the ability to make changes on the fly, more or less, by adjusting dimensions rather than redrawing an entire part as you might do in AutoCAD. That saves a lot of time.

The assemblies are great for seeing how something will move and what it will bump into and stuff like that.

Overall, I think it'll take some getting used to for an experienced AutoCAD user. But, for our students, I think it's a really easy, intuitive tool, and they should pick it up pretty quickly.