**FIRST EMAIL**/2009 Autodesk FIRSTbase Launched

[Mark McLeod]

Greetings Teams,

Autodesk FIRSTbase Has Re-Launched for FRC Teams!

For the 18th consecutive year, Autodesk is supporting the 2009 FIRST Robotics Competition. Since 1992, Autodesk has been working with the FIRST Robotics Competition to provide students and mentors with the same software that professionals use as well as many valuable tools all delivered through its one-of-a-kind FIRSTbase website dedicated to the teams.

What’s On FIRSTbase?

• The newest Autodesk software with a 1 year license, including:
  • Autodesk Inventor Professional 2009 (10 licenses per team)
  • Autodesk 3ds Max 2009 (5 licenses per team)
  • Autodesk Combustion 2008 (5 licenses per team)

• Online training exclusively designed for FRC teams
• The kit of parts modeled in Autodesk Inventor to save you crucial days of development
• Product technical support free of charge
• Hundreds of Autodesk Design Competition entries and all of the winners to view
• Your team’s own collaborative workspace
  • File sharing – upload and download files of up to 500 MB each
  • Team Discussion
  • Team Photo Sharing – post and share up to 100 photos
  • Assign tasks to team members
  • Post team news
  • Video sharing
  • Emailing capabilities
  • Plus learn interesting and fun facts about your team members

How Can I Get Access to FIRSTbase?

The team’s Main Contact is required to register first before anyone else on the team can join regardless if the Main Contact is a new or returning user.

New Users to Autodesk FIRSTbase:

If you have never joined the Autodesk FIRSTbase site before, you can go to www.autodesk.com/firstbase, enter the FIRST Robotics Competition area and “Register.” The system will guide you through the easy steps, but please do take the time to read the directions and information along the way.

Returning Users to Autodesk FIRSTbase:

If you are already a member of Autodesk FIRSTbase, you can go to www.autodesk.com/firstbase, enter the FIRST Robotics Competition area and “Login” using the user name and password that you had selected last season. If you have forgotten your login information, click on the “Forgot your password” link and we will help you out. Even if you were a member of FIRSTbase last year, you will need to complete the re-joining process after you have logged in. This process will re-form your FRC 2009 team purging former team members and inviting current members.

What Should I Do After I Register?

As the Main Contact for the team, we put you in the driver’s seat to manage your team on the FIRSTbase site. Take advantage of all of the valuable products and resources available to your team:

Invite other team members to join: Go to the My Team page> Main Contact Toolbar> Invite.

Software: Once team members have registered on FIRSTbase, they will show up on your team member list and you can assign the software download rights. Go to the My Team page> Main Contact Toolbar> Downloads

Training: Take advantage of the online training tutorials on Autodesk Inventor Professional and Autodesk 3ds Max developed for FRC teams. Choose from beginner or intermediate levels.

TeamShare: Use this custom designed area for FRC teams to post photos, share files, videos and news, have team discussions, assign tasks, and email your team members.

Don’t Want To Be In Charge? No problem. You can give Main Contact rights for the site to one other adult Main Contact on the team. Go to the My Team page> Main Contact Toolbar> Access

Need Help?

Please do take the time to read and familiarize yourself with the Autodesk FIRSTbase site. We have hopefully answered most of your questions directly on the site. However, if you still need help, click on the “Contact Us” link for assistance.

Go Teams!

[Mark McLeod]

Except the IE browser downloads for Inventor and 3dsMax are corrupted.
I can download Combustion...

From Autodesk tech support:
"...there is a problem with IE (and probably any other browser than Firefox).
IE used to let you download files of this size. Now, IE has a 2 gigabyte limit on the file download size and returns a very cryptic "file not found" message instead of saying something obvious."

Autodesk has changed the wording on the download page to warn users that only Firefox can be used for browser downloads.
Using the Autodesk download tool probably avoids the problem altogether, however, Autodesk did warn me against using any third party download tools. Autodesk blocks 3rd party tool downloads.


With Firefox I can now download 3dsMax, however the Inventor download chokes at 1GB (out of 3 GB).
Anyone else have luck with the Inventor download?

P.S. Got it to download at home where I have control over my firewall (although DSL took 12 hours).
Both my work and school networks must have some setting that allows the 2.3GB download of 3dsMax, but not the 3.07GB Inventor download. The Inventor download would stop dead exactly at 1GB.
The Autodesk download tool isn't allowed to work through either my work or school firewalls.

[Madison]

You'd expect that they'd have the FTC version of this site up and running first, since that competition is taking place right now.

[ATannahill]

The download tool does not work, I get a message saying a file is out of place.

[comphappy]

I got an email from AutoDesk and it appears that it was not quite ready yet when we all starting trying to download it. They have fixed it and now is working. Well... except for combustion which is having activation issues.

[Gary_Pierson]

Actually, I'm still getting the same error. It seems to download the file and then an error pops up. Each time I try to restart the download tool, it tries to reinstall the file. I'm not sure it's fixed yet.

[comphappy]

Hmm, it JustWorked TM for me. Have you tried the direct download instead?

[yarb65]

I tried today after no results yesterday.All I got was an empty folder

[willson.thomas]

Originally Posted by yarb65

I tried today after no results yesterday.All I got was an empty folder

I downloaded it today using Firefox and the direct link and it worked just fine. I haven't tried to install but all 4gb of it extracted fine.