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Originally Posted by Skute327
the idea of the award is not to try to sell anything. inventor is a program to help design a product not sell it. Agreed, detail and ''pritty colors" are important for the business/ marketing end but in my opinion aren't nessissary to the drawing. i believe the most accurate representation of the team's robot should "win"
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I don't mean to pick on you, but in my experience there are often times when designs are used to sell a project to a customer. In these cases the presentation is very important, and how well the model conveys the final appearance may be as important as how well it explains basic functions. I see the Inventor Award as a way students can learn these skills and marketing techniques.
A recent case in point: my department provides engineering services for the company's scientific groups and we recently completed the development of a high speed reagent dispenser for the biologists. We worked with the biologists to determine the best device to fill their needs, which included surveying and testing commercial instruments as well as proposing our own proprietary device. That meant that we had to "sell" our device as a design concept vs. actual instruments they could bring in the lab and test.
We were working with an external engineering company who provided basic designs and layouts in AutoCAD 2D format. The biologists found it difficult to grasp the functional concepts that way, so I created Inventor models from the ACAD files, including an animation of the product transport system and a concept model of the overall instrument package. As soon as the biology department leader saw those he went from a tentative and wary "customer" to an enthusiastic supporter of the project. Being able to visualize the instrument in his lab was a very important factor in getting his approval.
By the way, that external engineering company has since begun using Inventor and the project was very successful - providing our biologists with the best solution for their needs and giving the company a competitive advantage in what's know as "high throughput screening".