pic: Schreiber Take on West Coast Drive

We at 114 try to use WAD (Whiteboard Aided Design) before we move to the computers. Once students can understand the goal of their design, they use CAD for what it is: A tool to enact a design. CAD is simply a step that is used to bring a design to reality, and nothing more.

The design is more than the CAD. The design is the thought, the sketches, and the math involved in bringing the mechanism to reality.

[kgzak]

Originally Posted by CraigHickman

We at 114 try to use WAD (Whiteboard Aided Design) before we move to the computers. Once students can understand the goal of their design, they use CAD for what it is: A tool to enact a design. CAD is simply a step that is used to bring a design to reality, and nothing more.

The design is more than the CAD. The design is the thought, the sketches, and the math involved in bringing the mechanism to reality.

That is pretty much what I have done for everyone of my designs except I use paper and a pencil. I only recently learned CAD so Most of my ideas have had to be given to CAD people. In my opinion that helped because my drawings had to be done so that others could turn it into CAD.

[Mike Schreiber]

Originally Posted by ttldomination

If you don't know how it works, how did you create the CAD in the first place?

The argument here is the base definition of pointless.

My argument is that if you say it goes this fast and they say how'd you get that number and you are stumped, what have you accomplished? You aren't getting that job.

The students who post well thought out designs with chain runs planned, ratios thought out, structural consideration, etc. are doing wonderful. They know how it works. I'm not saying you need every number, but if there's a number given it needs to be backed up. Pulling 11ft/sec out of nowhere is pointless. There are people who don't know how it works who are posting stuff. As Chris said:

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I've seen plenty of chassis CADed with gearboxes just dropped in place, without any thought to the gearing whatsoever. There are things you can make CAD of without understanding.

Chris' situation is what I'm referring to as the base definition of pointless. The students who learned mate and downloaded a bunch of stuff of AM...

Yes learning the basics of CAD is important. But there aren't many people who sit around and CAD all day without knowing anything about what they're drawing. There's a lot of those on CD.

As Adam said...A lot of "what" and very little "why"

Do I believe saying anything about these students posting random things will do anything? Not even the slightest.

[IKE]

If it is not hurting their grades, then what is really the issue with people cadding up ideas and submitting them for criticism and critique. Granted about 50% of the responses could be run from Auto-pilot, but so be it. I am sure that each one fo the students that threw their hat in the ring got some good advice. I really like Schreiber's sketch because it reminds us to do some figuring first, but we should all turn the snarkiness down just a bit on students that are excited about drawing up their ideas. While most would pass as loose interpretations of role model designs, they have brought up a lot of good responses like chain tensioner planning and design, chassis stiffness, how to make your chassis rock...
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Warning: Slight thread Hijack

Maybe those that are tired of seeing renders should work on a compliation paper of different 6WD designs, fabrication techniques, andd what teams love and hate about them. I know a couple posters in this thread have already done some great work on this material. Adding to their material and other presentations like Patton's and a few others would be great.

SAE will often do a compiling of papers on subjects that have a common theme and individually are good, but as a whole are more powerful than the sum of their parts. Imagine a 6+WD Chassis book that showcases/benchmarks some of the different ways about doing a 6+WD. Talk with the teams that have these and what they like and dislike about them. You could compile a nice set of papers on:

Architectures: Basic architectures and benchmarking. 6, 8, 10+ WD architectures. Live or dead axles. Cantilevered or fully supported. Direct Drive or chain...
Chain tensioners: types and the pros/cons of different tensioning systems along with the importance of having just the right tension.
Chassis Dynamics: the "why won't my bot turn?" paper along with several others. Pros&Cons of chassis Flex.
Construction and Fabrication techniques: KOP, Sheet metal, welded frame, 8020 frame, wood, plastic...
Power Transmission: Design guidelines for speed/traction philosophies. Designing powertrains with COTS. Custom gearboxes. Chains vs. Belts vs. Geardives.

If this book or collection existed, then you could just point up&coming chassis designers to the collection and off they can go.

IKE