Is CAD essential to all teams?

[orangemoore]

Originally Posted by ASD20

2. For FRC, you don't need to know what most of the CAD software does
95% of the parts I design are made almost entirely of circles, rectangles, and hexagons arranged in a circular or rectangular pattern. Most of the more complicated parts are COTS and you can just download the models. However, I will say the one thing you should learn as soon as possible is that pattern tools are your friend. Trust me, I probably drew 200 individual 1/4" holes spaced 1 inch apart before I learned about patterns. Assemblies for robots can be difficult and I still don't know a lot of the best practices, but that is something you should devote more time to because a lot of robot CAD is assembling COTS parts.

A good rule of thumb I follow is if you are ever thinking, "There has to be a better way" google whatever you are doing and I bet there is a better way.