[jman4747]

Originally Posted by abhishekmalle

How soon is the CAD model done during the season? Or is it a continuous process where as soon as the CAD is done, the building of that part is undertaken?

It depends on how you are making your parts and what your resources are. This year we acquired a sheet metal fabrication sponsor on top of milling and turning ops we already had access to. Anything we wanted done in sheet metal needed to be sent off in one big order as based on the lead time we wouldn't have parts we sent of later back in time. The milled/turned parts could be made almost on the fly and get back in less than a week so we were able to iterate more with those.

It all depends on your specific situation. And you don't have to use CAD to make a complete 3D model of the robot. Even dimensions on a 2D sketch overlaid on to the kit chassis model can be a very valuable tool during fabrication.