[FTC]: What should I know about CAD (via Pro/E) for FTC?

[Techhexium]

Thanks everyone. It would be good for me to learn more than just assembly, I find that I may need to modify structural objects in Pro/E because teams will have to bend TETRIX parts, and not every part in the FTC Kits (Legos and TETRIX metal) is available in a 3D model. (I won't need to make them from scratch fortunately because some FTC teams like 2848 have released their CAD Library)

[NalaTI]

Look at sheet metal parts too... that's how we did all of the plastic. build it in Pro/E sheet metal, make sure it fits on the CAD robot model, then flatten the piece. Then you can print it out in a one-to-one size and cut it precisely to fit your robot using the band saw.

See http://technoguards.org/node/402 for an extreme example of how that works. In that case, after we tried it there, we realized that the details were too tough for the band saw and we actually ordered it laser cut from a company in Las Vegas ($50 for three copies) you can see the laser cut version in the next blog entry (http://technoguards.org/node/406)

[Molten]

Originally Posted by Techhexium

Thanks everyone. It would be good for me to learn more than just assembly, I find that I may need to modify structural objects in Pro/E because teams will have to bend TETRIX parts, and not every part in the FTC Kits (Legos and TETRIX metal) is available in a 3D model. (I won't need to make them from scratch fortunately because some FTC teams like 2848 have released their CAD Library)

I may be missing the point, but I'm not seeing the logic here. Wouldn't it be more helpful to know how to make parts from scratch then how to modify them? I'm sure it varies which way is easier, but for most simple parts it will be easier to make from scratch. As far as time needed, the modifying may be quicker but making parts from scratch is much easier to learn to do. I might be completely wrong, but I think your looking at it the wrong way this time.

Jason

[NalaTI]

Originally Posted by Molten

I may be missing the point, but I'm not seeing the logic here. Wouldn't it be more helpful to know how to make parts from scratch then how to modify them? I'm sure it varies which way is easier, but for most simple parts it will be easier to make from scratch. As far as time needed, the modifying may be quicker but making parts from scratch is much easier to learn to do.

There's no real difference in the learning aspect. If you learn how to make them, you've also learned how to modify them.

In our case, we modified some, and some we re-made. Some parts we made into families (so they could be replaced without doing a ton of work), some parts we learned about flexibility (shortening or adjusting dimensions of individual pieces in an assembly).

By the way, some of the parts in the standard library have the wrong dimensions (just slightly wrong, but too many "almost's" and it becomes a "not quite") -- I'd recommend that you watch closely for that as you look at mod'ing and creating.

As Tecchhexium mentioned, our CAD library of the parts that we re-built is located at: http://technoguards.org/CAD_Library