CAD?

[John_Retkowski]

Another thing to do in the off season is to make COTS parts in Solidworks (or whatever your team decides to use) your team uses a lot. It will save you time during the season. You can adjust the masses of certain items and even apply materials to make the look better for a render if you choose…stuff you shouldn’t waste time on during the season that costs nothing to do now. I’d suggest CADing up a drive base or two in the off season. Not only will it make you more proficient in CAD, but it can provide some insight on drive base design that will help during the season (common pitfalls, difficult to CAD parts, etc.).

^This exactly. One of the best ways to learn CAD is to start by making parts.
One of the things that helped our team was the Autodesk CAD guide which showed picture and measurements of increasingly difficult parts for us to make. Every time we hit a road block (which was very often in the beginning), we were able to learn a new way or tool to make us better. I remember the first part taking me an hour and a half to make. But through the knowledge I’ve gained I could make that same part in five minutes. Making parts for your bot is an especially efficient way to not only accumulate experience, but also to give you a head start in build season.

[jamierose]

Along with what everyone else said, I suggest taking a look at this Design and CAD guide made by another student on 610. This was written by someone who had no idea how to CAD at the beginning of Grade 9, so it might be quite accessible to newer users.

610 Part Library and Design Tutorials

Designing mechanisms for robots is part of the curriculum of every Grade 9 in the school, so virtually everyone on the team knows how to design a part in SolidWorks and then make it in real life. Due to this, I can confidently say that almost every single student on the team now is better at designing in SolidWorks than our head of Manufacturing/Mechanical than when I was in Grade 9 and it was separate from the CAD division.

Basically, I suggest that the people who build the robot and the people who design it using CAD software learn the other skill eventually, as it makes everything so much easier.

We also have more basic CAD tutorials for the Grade 9 technology course at my school. I’ll see if we can post them online.

[mplanchard]

For SOLIDWORKS, the best place to start is www.solidworks.com/first. Fill out the application.

Get the software for everyone on your team. Go through the tutorials. We even have tutorials just for FRC. Other teams here have made great tutorials.

Download the kit of parts models. Open the kit bot assembly to see how parts go together.

Divide the team. Start in the summer. Everyone learns the basics. Let the artistic members of you team focus on Photoview 360 and Animation. Another member can concentrate on machined parts and another sub assemblies.

Texas has a strong SolidWorks commercial and college/university presence.
Go to www.swugn.org. There are many SolidWorks users groups in Texas. Austin is our oldest and one of the biggest. Might be worth a field trip.

Marie.