pic: Schreiber Take on West Coast Drive

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Andrew, I don't know a single employer who would take a napkin sketch and arbitrary numbers over a full CAD given a choice between the two. It's a shame that you're mocking everyone who requests feedback on various frame designs while also learning.

CAD is never a crutch; it's simply one of the many pieces to the equation of a high quality product.

Am I looking for a job designing gearboxes? Do I work in that field? No. But I do know that most employers would rather me take the 30 seconds it takes to draw a rough sketch of an idea to make sure it would work than spend 2 hrs in CAD.

Would you call a lot of what has been posted recently full CAD or would you call it a bunch of cookie cutter components tossed together? I would say the latter. And yes, I am going to mock them. I am ok with them learning, heaven knows I still am, but this constant stream of "West Coast Drive" CADs that are only differentiable by their color is irritating. Sure, I could have put more time into my drawing but the important parts are there in my opinion. Wheel placement (having them overhung), chain placement, approximate weight, and a reasonable gearing based upon simple calculations. (Which I will be redoing thanks to Jared's post)

CAD used as a tool to help further a design is a tool. CAD used to assemble parts that you downloaded off the internet and then making a pretty picture without any understanding of what you are doing is a crutch.

Originally Posted by JesseK

If you re-read Andrew's post as if you were brand new to these forums, you may find that (specifically) the final paragraph is incredibly off-putting to someone trying to do a CAD by themselves for the first time, not knowing what they're really supposed to know in order to do things correctly. Andrew has exemplified the common CD knowledge paradox. Sure, all of the recent CAD prototypes are 'pretty', and most of them are missing details, yet the negative implications of Andrew's tone are as common as the missing details themselves.

Yes, my last paragraph was meant to be that way. I, as a mentor whose job it is to inspire (not teach) students, would be floored if we were to have dozens of students asking how to properly do calculations for drive trains or arms. They have their college years to learn CAD (and will probably have to relearn a different piece of software for their jobs). Instead they are designing systems that, in all likelihood, will not work because they made some mistake that would have been solved had they first taken the time to do a quick sketch on a white board. So, if I turn off a couple people from jumping right into CAD I am fine with that as long as it also gets some people thinking about doing the math.