[EricH]

Originally Posted by 548swimmer

I work on new ideas instead of doing my homework, so if pencil sketches let me get back my homework in five minutes, I'd rather spend an hour CADding.

Pencil sketches can get you back to homework in under 5 minutes. The hour CADding without doing your homework, however, we BOTH know is an hour that could be better spent. [Insert discussion on how school is more important than refining CAD skills--for now--here.]

I can get you a concept drawing, by hand, on a letter-size piece of paper, in about 15 minutes. CAD for the same thing (concept) would take me about half an hour, if I was willing to fudge some things like basic shapes. Detailed CAD would take at least a week fitting it around homework; a more detailed hand drawing could between an hour and 3-4 hours, depending on the level of detail required--with fitting around homework, call it a couple of days.

I once spent about 3 days CADding something that the concept sketches took mere minutes to do. It's a lot more time intensive to CAD something.

What Andrew showed was a concept sketch. That's how you sell a product to investors or your company, or rough out an idea. When people post CAD pictures on here, they're posting production material--what will eventually be used to build the part. Could you use production material for a concept sketch? Sure, given enough time. But when the deadline's in a couple of hours, and you need to explain something, two or three concept sketches that are on time can be worth every part in the production CAD assembly, two months after the deadline.