[DonRotolo]

We use Inventor, and there are many, many tutorials on the Autodesk site to get you started. I can imagine Solidworks is no different.

Get the software, load it onto the most powerful machine you can get, and build things for practice. Wheels, brackets, levers, whatever. Keep it simple to get started them move to more complex stuff.

The ultimate goal is to actually design and build mechanisms in CAD first, make sure they work, and only them commit to metal. Many teams under-use CAD by building things in metal, getting them to work, and then making a model in CAD. This consumes time and materials unnecessarily. Just look at how Boeing designed their 787...

Step one is to start playing with it ASAP. You only have a bit over a month to get any good at it.