[Chris Fultz]

i would base the decision on these factors:

What does the school have and use that the students may already have access to and be learning? This may be Inventor if the school has PLTW.

What do the mentors leading the design team know and use. It is a program that can be downloaded for the team?

What does your primary machining source use (if you have one)? Do you need to be compatible?

There is not one solution that fits every team.

(We use inventor because it is on every machine in the school lab, the students are already using it, and we can easily download it on laptops where needed.)