Virtual Kit of Parts

[Madison]

Where is it?

I checked Buzzsaw (or whatever they're calling it now) and there's nothing there. We do, however, get a folder for our team. I'll investigate what possibilities that offers in a bit.

The Award section of the manual says the VKoP is available on Autodesk Streamline, and that we should use our Streamline accounts to access it. Unless I missed something, I don't have a Streamline account and I never have. I've never seen how to create one, either.

Some help? I could really use some models of the new kit components.

[Ed Sparks]

I haven't found the VKOP either. I have a few new parts posted and I'll try to have most drawn by the end of the week. Thursday and Saturday evenings will be my posting targets.

My job is cutting into my play time

Ed

First Cad Library

[AJ Quick]

This information was just released:

Autodesk has, once again this year, generously offered to render all the parts in the kit in Autodesk Inventor and make the “Virtual Kit Of Parts” available to all teams for use on Streamline. FIRST was unable to get all the kit of parts components to Autodesk in time for them to be available immediately after the Kickoff. The final group of parts was shipped to Autodesk on 1/2/03. Autodesk estimates that the Virtual Kit of Parts should be complete and available to teams using their Autodesk Streamline accounts by January 13th. We apologize for the delay and express our sincere thanks to Autodesk for their continuing support of our programs.

[Specialagentjim]

In reply to the "information just released post", it says that we will have access via our streamline accounts...apparently im not the ONLY one who dosent have access to a streamline account...Anybody have any clue how we get one?

[Madison]

Originally posted by Specialagentjim
In reply to the "information just released post", it says that we will have access via our streamline accounts...apparently im not the ONLY one who dosent have access to a streamline account...Anybody have any clue how we get one?

The accounts are being created by FIRST, and the information is being e-mailed to your team's main contact.

[Specialagentjim]

Oh coool! Thanks! Now to figure out how to contact the team's main contact (that's the problem with a big team sponser...they kinda make things like this not the easiest thing to get done...). thanks again!

[Clark Gilbert]

__________________________________________________ ____

We have received many questions about accessing the Virtual Kit of Parts (VKOP). We hope that the following information will clarify many of your questions about both Streamline access and the VKOP.

The VKOP are the kit of parts that you received last week which have been rendered in Autodesk Inventor to save you time and effort. Using the VKOP you will not have to create these items yourself in Autodesk Inventor in order to design your robot.

The VKOP is available on Streamline at https://folders.buzzsaw.com/2003FRC/...20Parts?Public This is a public space and teams do not need an account number or password to access it. The VKOP is still in the process of being completed, but we anticipate having all the parts rendered by the end of the week.

Accounts are in the process of being set up for each team. As the account is set up, the main team contact will receive an e-mail with the account number and access password directly from Streamline. Many of you should have already received this as the setting up of accounts has been ongoing for the past few weeks. For those of you that have not, we anticipate having all the accounts completed by early next week.

It is important to note that you do NOT need an account number to access or download the VKOP, which you can save to a ZIP drive, a CD rom, a hard drive or file server. The account allows you to utilize a "private" space on Streamlines server for file sharing of your robot designs with other team members on-line.

Go Teams!

__________________________________________________ _


That's what i got today, they have it up, but there arent many kit parts

My brother, a teacher, and I are working on the pre-molded motor mounts, i think we have about 4 pieces done. We may package them up and put them online if we decide they are good enough.

[petek]

I'm getting a STG_E_FILENOTFOUND ($80030002) error when opening many of these files. The adapter keyed shaft and 25Pin_Cable, are two that fail. Some open okay, like the battery connector. I'm using Inv 5.3, but I hope that's not the problem!

Anyone else see this?

[Madison]

Originally posted by petek
I'm getting a STG_E_FILENOTFOUND ($80030002) error when opening many of these files. The adapter keyed shaft and 25Pin_Cable, are two that fail. Some open okay, like the battery connector. I'm using Inv 5.3, but I hope that's not the problem!

Anyone else see this?

It's my understanding that these models were created in Inventor 6. At least, that's what FIRST's documentation said. The models you can open may be reused from this past season, however.

[petek]

I hope it's not a v6 vs v5.3 issue - we have several 5.3 seats, but just one copy of 6. Could be a bottleneck, if that is the case. I'll try it on 6 tonite.

[Clark Gilbert]

That error is what you get when you use Inventor 5.3. I gave the link to my CAD teacher and we had the same problem with 5.3.

[petek]

I was afraid that might be the case - now that I think of it I think I saw something similar in v5.0 with 5.3 files last year. Would be nice if Autodesk would let you do a "save as" to 5.3 for those of us who can't afford to upgrade all our licenses.

This will make it a lot harder to do adaptive designs and assemblies, with just one seat that can open all the files. It looks like most of the parts carried over from last year are in an older version, anyway.

[Ed Sparks]

I model all of my parts to V5.0 to allow those with last years software to participate. I'll soon post my version of any models that Autodesk releases to help those with 5.0 & 5.3.

Ed

First Cad Library

[Mike Betts]

I have been able to open the majority of the streamline files with Inventor 5.0 and the ones that I can't seem to have a file missing. This does not seem like a revision issue...

Has anyone "fixed" this problem with 6.0 or do we have to contact Autodesk to get the missing files posted?

[petek]

Mike,

I believe (as others have noted) the problem with the new part files from Autodesk is that they are created in Inventor 6. I have verified that they do open in 6, but not in 5.3 or 5.0, giving filenotfound errors in the older versions.

We are getting around this by opening them in 6 and exporting them as IGES solids so we can use them in Inventor 5.x. Of course you can't edit the IGES geometry, but unless you modify one of these kit parts that shouldn't be a problem.

If you haven't done it before, exporting to IGES format is simply a matter of:
- Open the part .ipt file;
- Select File -> Save Copy As;
- Select File Save Type: IGES (.igs, ...);
- Click the Options button to set the IGES File Save As options*; and
- Save the file.

* The default geometry is Surfaces; if you plan to do any section views you may be more successful by saving as Solids.

When you want to open one of these IGES files in Inventor you have to set the File->Open->Files of type: to IGES.

Pete