Autodesk and FRC 2016

[inventor_phild]

Originally Posted by thinker&planner

Always glad to see Autodesk's continual support.

We are thinking about switching to Fusion360 this year for FRC for a few reasons, but have a few issues with it. We want to switch because of the cloud-sharing, integrated CAM (love the waterjet CAM feature), and the direct insert from McMaster button.
My biggest concern right now is that I don't understand how to structure what are "assemblies" in Inventor. I understand that there are bodies, components, and component groups, but should I be making a new file for every part, or just every sub-assembly? It seems like Fusion is geared more towards the one-file robot, with all parts in that file. My only problem with this is that I made a, assembly (component group) and tried to export one of the pieces to make CAM for it, but it did not export correctly, and there was some messed up associations.

I would also love to have a belt/chain (pulley/sprocket) generator. Oh, and sheet metal parts.
Thanks

I was going to mention Fusion in the next few days but your question has moved that up a bit!

I worked with an FTC team mentor on using Fusion 360 or Inventor for his team. I started by modeling the base FTC robot using Tetrix parts. All parts were uploaded into my design from Inventor. Here is the public link to the frame I modeled.

http://a360.co/1GJf9sL

A major change in Fusion this year is being able to insert a subassembly into the current design. I used this a lot. It is officially called "Distributed Designs". The frame I built is fully functional. Driving one wheel drives all wheels and gears. You cannot see that in the preview, but it is true!

Sheet metal is on the road map for next year. I have seen some folks using scripts for gears, etc. but have not followed up on that.

Email me if you want to discuss this further.