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Originally Posted by thenomnivore
When it comes to CADing, during what portion of the design process does this come into play? And how long does it take to CAD a robot?
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You can start using Computer Aided Design very early on in the design process. A lot of teams use 2D sketches done on CAD programs to broadly lay out their robot and to analyze interactions between their robot and game pieces/the field. Making these drawings on CAD software allows them to play around with specific dimensions, taking some of the guesswork out hand drawings. In this way, if your CAD team is fast enough, it can even be used for prototyping.
Once you have an idea of what features you want on your robot, you can begin more detailed design. Some teams start out with blocks that represent parts (I know 148 has done this), adding detail later once they know their exact layout. Others will start designing individual parts. Either way, the end goal is the same: a complete digital model of a robot.
As for a time during the build season that it happens, it really varies from team to team. For example, my team started making major decisions about our robot's design on day 1/kickoff. This is because we needed to have our design finished by the end of week 1, as fabrication and assembly take a lot longer for us than many other teams. As you may have heard before, this is a point where you must "know thy team" and the resources at your disposal.
Similarly, the amount of time it takes to design a robot in CAD depends on many factors unique to your team. How complex is your robot? How big is your CAD team? How experienced is your CAD team? For my team, it took me (working alone) one week to create a well developed model, minus parts we were still prototyping/iterating on. However, as far as I can tell, I am a very efficient CAD user, largely due to interning at Autodesk last summer.
Sorry for the wall of text, hope it was helpful.