What Percent of Teams Use CAD?

[waialua359]

CAD was essential for our team this year most especially in trying to design components to fit in such a small envelope.....i.e. going under the low bar.
We upped our game in recent years because we were able to get several CAD mentors assisting our students. They also happen to be our former students.
CAD has become much more essential before we manufacture anything in our shop and a big part of our system to go from concept discussions to fabrication of parts.
However, we are learning much like many others that just because you can draw something, doesnt necessarily mean it'll work.
But each subsequent year, we are getting better at it through experience. Definitely worth having CAD as part of our build process.

[DaveL]

In the past, I have used Visio for space claim, intake design and pneumatic cylinder length and placement analysis. We even had a company laser cut a support based on a Visio file. A few students have learned Visio. Its a great 2D tool that can be learned by most students in under an hour and Microsoft has agreements with many school districts for free software.

We are also getting students trained up in Solidworks. This spring we designed a simple product and then 3D printed it. We are moving toward our goal of designing the entire robot before construction.

If you create a survey, some of the things to ask might include:
Years in FIRST?
Have a CAD mentor on the team?
How large is your team (active students)?
What do you use CAD for? (Multiple Selection)
- 3D printing
- Custom frame design
- CNC milling
- Transmission design
- Space Claim
- Overall robot design
- Wire routing
- Other

How did your team get up to speed?
- Books
- Videos
- Mentors
- Help from another team
- Other

Which CAD product do you use?
- Solidworks
- Autodesk
- Visio
- PowerPoint
- ProE
- Creo
- Other

Dave

[smitikshah]

We have decided to really use CAD this year.

Last season a couple people tried to use sketchup to CAD the actual bot but the robot didn't end up working. For the offseason we really got serious and used SW which really helped the team - so if the main design person/captain was not there that day build team still had all the dimensions and an idea of the bot. It also allowed less dedicated members to know how they could help out in cutting/building when they decided to swing by the lab.

In addition, with CADing the entire bot this year, we were able to create an engineering notebook for future generations of the team with all the individual parts and final assembly. Each part (with CAD rendering) and an explanation of why we decided to go with that design hopefully will help future generations make tough design decisions choices.

All in all, CAD was super beneficial to use for our team, helped us all stay on the same page, and helped us not waste too much time with days on end of prototyping. Definitely recommend!

(Plus if you get things specially cut - we get some aluminium pieces waterjet cut - you would absolutely need it!)

[Oslim1999]

Originally Posted by DaveL

Which CAD product do you use?
...
- PowerPoint

YES

although in all seriousness, we use Inventor for pretty much everything, we CAD the entire robot as Mechanical builds the robot, and we got up to speed just with practice and the Inventor textbook our mentor has.

[Coach Norm]

Our team uses SolidWorks for the entire robot and has for three years now. We have a SolidWorks class that is offered at our high school which has helped with some knowledge base of the software.

We have 6 FTC teams with 62 students in our program for ninth and tenth graders. We offer SolidWorks installation for any student or mentor in the program for their personal computer. Many of the students begin to use the software in the designs of their robots due to CNC, 3D printing and laser cutting of parts.

We have had students offer training to other students over the summer is twice a week two hour long sessions to learn the basics. This past Fall, the students held design workshops once a week for 8 weeks to work on design practices and methods.

CAD design takes a time commitment of the team and the students involved.
It has changed our robots over the past few years for the better.

I agree with Glenn's comment on you sometimes design something that cannot be made. You learn by doing though.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by dirtbikerxz

Power Point? as in microsoft PowerPoint?.... I'm guessing not

Yes, Microsoft Power Point. I've attached a preview of the slides presenting the option we built.

[Amit3339]

I don't know the precent of teams using CAD but I can say that since we've started using CAD our design process became much more effecient. CAD is not my especialty but I believe that a lot of people on CD would be happy to help!

[Spark]

I've found that it's helpful to CAD enough of the bot so you get a general idea to explain to others, but unless you cut an actual part on a CNC it's a waste of time to CAD beyond that. One of the greatest traps you can get stuck in is wasting lots of time on unnecessary details, such as putting in every single bolt, nut, and bushing. Unless there is really limited space there is no need to get realistic CAD models for most things. Using cubes and cylinders when possible, such as representing electrical components, does the job just fine and takes two-thirds less time.