my team needs crab/swerve pod cad files

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by CraigHickman

I put in a "security" measure in order to make sure they're doing their homework. Some dimensions will have been slightly changed, not enough for aesthetics, but enough that any attempt to make the part will fail miserably, or will be hell for the machinist.

Ummm...no offense but this seems like a waste of time. The way I see it if you are not willing to share your CAD that is one thing, but messing it up on purpose so it won't work seems like a bad idea. Especially for high school students calculation center to center distances for gearboxes or any of the other precision required dimensions can cause problems even if they design them from scratch. I think it would be better just not to make them public, because once you release virtual files you no longer control where they go and a 3rd or 4th party person who may get them may not even think that they aren't complete. Yes it would be a lesson to learn for the person who just tries to copy but won't you still feel bad when a robot running your design fails miserably on the field....I know I would.

As for seeing unobstructed views of the CAD to get designs from you might have people use auto desk freewheel. http://freewheel.labs.autodesk.com/index.aspx