Does anyone have any tips to Cad and design your first FRC robot?

[NShep98]

I actually have similar questions to the OP. This past year, my team did very little CAD, save for one part machined by a sponsor. For that reason I've been trying to learn Inventor since the summer. I've got a pretty good handle on parts and assemblies at this point. My main question is: Where do you start in the project of bringing a design to a fleshed out CAD model? What sort of steps do teams take in order to manage it all?

[asid61]

I always start my design process by determining my goals. What do I want to do? How much space can I use? How fast should I be going?
Then I go into JVN Design Calculator and figure out my motors and gearings for my gearboxes. Learning how motors work and how much power/heat they make is critical to knowing what gearing to use.
I then make a layout sketch in CAD defining what the overall shape of the robot will look like. This is a single sketch that contains all the major parts of the robot.
Finally, I start making individual parts and putting them together.

For your first robot, if your team isn't strong in CAD, I would skip it at this point. With only a few weeks until build season, your time is better spent familiarizing yourself with on-paper design and accurate drawing without worrying about digital design at all. If you're doing this for yourself, then first read up on Inventor tutorials until you understand all the basics of CAD software. Then watch RAMP videos on Youtube and dig up other FRC tutorials.

[Toasty]

Originally Posted by NShep98

My main question is: Where do you start in the project of bringing a design to a fleshed out CAD model? What sort of steps do teams take in order to manage it all?

The way my team brought parts from CAD to fabrication last build season was by making engineering drawings of the parts we needed then printing them out and posting them on our whiteboard for any mechanical member on our team to then fabricate. This year we are planning on doing the same process but to also using trello to keep things more organized.

[carpedav000]

When CADing the drivetrain, make your gearboxes first. It's way easier to make the drivetrain fit around gearboxes than it is to make gearboxes fit around the drivetrain (I'm currently having this problem myself)