Teaching Newbies Inventor

[Sean Marks]

Hello All,
It will be our second year as a team and my second year with the program. We had 4 AutoCAD members last year and seeing as we were all freshman, we will all be returning. Yet there are freshman and other new members joining the team this year that wish to learn about Inventor as well. As a requirement on our team each subgroup must give training to the new members.

I know there are the online tutorials, and other guides and such, as i have done a lot of them. But for the training im planning on starting them with some of the tutorials, then demonstrate some things which we learning from the conference in Atlanta. What i was wondering was what some of the more experienced teams have used to train new members in Inventor? Maybe some Mini projects you gave them to do? Somethings such as they had to make 2 to 3 parts, then assemble them?

Thanks,
Sean

[Tottanka]

My team hasnt done it, but that's what i would have done i were in your situatuion:

Ge tehm all, tell them about the inventoor show them the FirstCadLibrary and let them make your eletric board, or something.
Then let them make a part, not a hard one.
Teach them a bit about design accelerator, and they're set.
By that time you should have turned them into inventor fans, and they will make more parts of their own will.

Good Luck, Liron.

Whenever I teach Inventor, I start simple. First make a basic part that goes down the tool line, in both sketch and features. Have them all work through making this part, as you cover over it on a projector, or something they all can see. After doing several of those (I usually do 3 or so), hand them a drawing of a part, just as someone would during the build season. However, have one or two dimensions missing. Don't make it impossible by the lack of these dimensions, but make it so they have to do some basic math or geometry in order to figure it out. If that challenge doesn't sound good, then try handing them a hand drawing of a part that is dimensioned correctly, but drawn off scale. This will start preparing them for CADing parts that team members hand them, in order to aid the machinists.

Once they have the basics down, give them another challenge, this one free form. Hand them a pair of calipers (digital or not, doesn't matter), and tell them to pick some machined part from last year's robot. Have them record all dimensions, and go CAD it up. Once they finish, send them on to a more complex part. This set of challenges is nice because it allows them to scale their CAD to their skillset at the time. So if one kid is getting it faster, you can give him a more complex part.

If you want to throw them a brain bender, have them CAD a part with a hole that is at 45 degrees to the face it's drilled into. That should stump them for a week or three.

Have fun teaching!

[technoL]

In our last meeting the Mech team was finally introduced to Inventor. I started off with a demonstration of making a basic 2D sketch and turning it into something 3D, going through most of the tool pane. We didn't have access to the projector at the meeting since there were other subteams in the room, but we were fine with a few of the students crowding around my computer for the brief overview.

Then the members were sent off to their individual workstations. I had several simple tasks assigned, such as modeling a piece of box tubing, a piece of sheet metal with holes, and other things that allowed the students to explore and manipulate all of the features. This week I'll explain assemblies and constraints and such and then have them go through some tutorials after another simple exercise. Similar to the last poster, we'll probably give them a few choices of realistic components to model after the basics are learned.

From there we'll begin to move towards drivetrains, manipulators, and overall robot design. There tends to be a fast learning curve, so be prepared to have extra activities planned in case your group also moves very quickly.

[Arefin Bari]

All the suggestions given above are very useful. Please use them.

Sean, just keep in mind that if one doesn't have the willingness to sit down with inventor/cad (and mess around for hours), they won't learn how to work with inventor no matter how much knowledge you pass to them.

Good luck.

[Molten]

All suggestions so far are worth taking note. My teacher started me off with a bunch of wooden pieces. Ex: cylinders with pieces missing, blocks with a side swept out, and anything else that will get them in the right mind set for Inventor. Then, tell them to make a bird house. Don't give them dimension, just require that it has a roof, is an assembly, all the parts can be cut out of one piece of wood (no bending wood ), and challenge them with a peg for landing. Then, let them work. Once they start to have problems, odds are they will have problems, help them figure it on their own. I notice that a lot of people tend to have problems with assembling. This is because they go so long without needing it. It is one of my strong suits because a bird house was my third part I had ever drawn. Don't be afraid to make them sweat. I trained five students last year and of the five, 1 is about my equal at drafting. Now, some may say that I was to harsh and overworked them. (I admit to doing this ). However, despite whether or not I worked them to hard, they still learned the software.

IN SHORT: Have them build a bird house.

Once they have, critique their house. How hard would it be to make? Are dimensions realistic?(No 10' bird houses ) Did they use dimensions?(Basic, but some seem to refuse to use dimensions. ) All of these will show you immediately how prone they are to the software and innovation itself. Also, they will gain respect for the software.(won't happen if you just give them easy parts).
Hope this helped, if I was confusing just ask a question and I will try to explain better.

[SgtMillhouse648]

Id say start them down making something simple, like a 4x6 block. show them what the different features mean. show them they can extrude that shape straight up, or revolve it around one of the edges to make a cylinder. then take this block and show them how to make a sketch on top of that one block. go in and show them how to round/chamfer the edges. In my intro to eng. des. class, everyone's first project was a puzzle cube. you had to take a 3x3 cube and divide it up into a number of pieces, sketching each out on iso/graph paper first. then make the parts and assemble them. then make a presentation/exploded view of them all and last make an .idw of every piece. It worked real good for helping the other kids get the basics down.

[vivek16]

hey guys,

our team would like to start to use inventor this year too. I was just wondering what the minimum computer requirements were for inventor. I know that the processor should be atleast 2ghz and 2gb ram and a good graphics card is very nice but what are the minimum specs at which the program will run?k

thanks, vivek.

[JasJ002]

The best way in my opinion is to simply build things, anything right now. A month before kick off start with real world stuff (maybe rebuild last years robot), a week before kickoff go through the process of the next 8 weeks, set a calender, ect.

[Molten]

In response to vivek, You might want to check this link I pulled up from Inventor's site.
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet...&siteID=123112
I am not a fan of the most recent versions of Inventor. If you are worried about whether or not your computer can hold it. You can reduce most of the requirements if you cut back and go for Inventor 8.
Check http://www.amsystems.com/products/me...emRequirements
I would not necessarily suggest this for competing for the Inventor award. But, If you just want it for design reasoning and dimensional decision making(like I do). Inventor 8 is good enough. Besides, just because your computer can handle the newest version doesn't mean you want it to be slowing things down so much.
Note: Inventor 8 is not probably Vista compatible. Not sure though. Could someone let me know? I would appreciate the info.
Well, vivek, I hope this helped you.

[JD Mather]

To avoid picking up bad habits you might want to have them go through this document
http://home.pct.edu/~jmather/AU2006/MA13-3%20Mather.pdf
I will be posting an update for 2008 in about a month.


The students who gung-ho might want to try tackling these tutorials
http://home.pct.edu/~jmather/content..._tutorials.htm

[JasJ002]

The biggest problem that most teams have is that they run out of time because there is so much to do in so little time. Practice mini projects with due dates, and don't be scared to push them when it comes to time. The biggest part of a winning submission is that it's complete.

[M. Mellott]

We are fortunate to have a local branch of Kent State University give us the use of one of their classrooms for our Inventor class, with a couple dozen computers and an instructor's computer hooked up to an overhead projector. We're actually going to a larger scale of training this year--not only are we training 6-8 of Team 48's students interested in Inventor (half of which are veteran students with Inventor experience), but we've also invited students from the other 3 teams in our Northeast Ohio FIRST Robotics Alliance (NEOFRA) to participate (hopefully, about 15-18 students total).

Since there's a lot of interest in T-shirt launchers this year, one of my fellow engineers put together a scaled-down foam dart launcher, and we'll use that project as the teaching tool (but not tell them what it is up front--let them figure it out as the class goes to keep them coming back for more). We 'll start simple with the modeling of the dart, taking them through the process of creating a sketch and using it to generate a 3D solid, then creating additional sketches and solids to modify the part. We'll have the actual parts there so they'll have to measure the pasrts with calipers to get the dimensions. We'll then have them create other parts of the launcher, bringing the components together in an assembly file to show them mating constraints. Finally, we'll show them how to take individual parts or subassemblies into 2D to generate working drawings for the Build Team.

If we have time, we'll get into more complicated assemblies like transmissions or electrcal boards, but it's important they get the basics down first. From there, they should be ready to practice on their own back at their respective schools.

[Andy A.]

There are two things I always recommend to new users.

The first is to learn the sketch constraints cold. You have to know them like the back of your hand in order to produce adaptive parts that can change quickly. Inventor does your team no good if the CAD jocks can't keep up with the ever changing manufacturing. Designs are often changed in the shop, and you need to be able to update your drawings to reflect that change. This is about elventiy billion times easier if you've properly constrained your sketches and assemblies. The alternative is changing each dimension individually and it's so laborious that no one is going to do it. Then you end up with a model of the robot that isn't even remotely correct.

The other big point for me is learning to produce properly dimensioned drawings. I've seen some people who can create all sorts of geometry and make amazing looking models of complex parts and assemblies. But they can't document all that stuff with a set of prints because no one's ever showed them how. In a perfect world we would just send the part files off to a CNC shop and let the machine figure out everything else. But that's rarely the case in FIRST. We have to be able to give our machinists drawings they can work from, and that means giving them all the dimensions, tolerances that work and views that are helpful. I've always found this to be the most demanding part of my CAD work in FIRST and even more so now that I do this for a living. It doesn't matter how pretty the model is, if you can't give the factory a set of drawings and design guides that work you haven't really accomplished anything.

Does that mean we need to do all the math associated with for press fits, hole patterns and such in FIRST? Usually not. It's a complex subject and is rarely intuitive. Compared to good modeling skills it's not so important and takes much longer to master. Often we can just have a general note saying 'please get it as close as you can', and that works because most parts in FIRST are one-off's and custom fit. Still, I take the time to include tolerances where I can particularly where I know they need to be tight. The more information like this I can communicate the less pressure there is on everyone.

So, before you get into doing fancy stuff like lofts and complex sweeps spend time practicing making drawings. Show the students complete drawing sets, drawings that work and those that don't and so on.

-Andy A.

[Protronie]

Originally Posted by M. Mellott

We are fortunate to have a local branch of Kent State University give us the use of one of their classrooms for our Inventor class, with a couple dozen computers and an instructor's computer hooked up to an overhead projector. We're actually going to a larger scale of training this year--not only are we training 6-8 of Team 48's students interested in Inventor (half of which are veteran students with Inventor experience), but we've also invited students from the other 3 teams in our Northeast Ohio FIRST Robotics Alliance (NEOFRA) to participate (hopefully, about 15-18 students total).

Hey great idea inviting members from other area teams and training together.
Great way for the new members to build working relationships with other teams.
Hope you have a great class!