[archiver]

Posted by Andy Baker, Engineer on team #45, TechnoKats, from Kokomo High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.

Posted on 4/15/99 10:09 PM MST


In Reply to: Re: CAD Drawings? posted by Daniel on 4/15/99 9:29 PM MST:



I'll second that! I assume that many of us design these beasts using CAD.

CAD helps tremendously. I use Unigraphics (UG) to design machinery at
work, so it was a natural to use it to design parts of our robot.
This year, it was especially helpful as I designed our drive base. After
our team decided what sort of concept the drive base should be, I was
able to get into the details while using UG. Once the details formed the
machine, our team could look at prints of assembly drawings and details
so that everyone knew how the design was progressing. What we ended up
with was a 1 inch thick stack of prints which any team member could access
while they wanted to make parts and debug sub-assemblies.

Also, what CAD give you is the ability to make your own gears and sprockets.
This year, we have designed and fabricated 7 or 8 different sprockets and
gears which were wire-EDMed out of hunks of steel and aluminum. Even if you
don't have access to a wire-EDM or a laser cutter to make your own gears,
most decent sized machine shop should have the capability to take your
file and make a gear for you.

Thie brings up a question: does anyone else design using UG?

I know that dxf and iges conversions do an OK job transferring CAD data
using the part's wireframe and surfaces, but UG works in solids. It
sure would be nice to share kit files with another UG user.

Andy B.