In an effort to improve the FirstCadLibrary, I’d like some feedback concerning the version(s) of Inventor that you are using. Thanks 
Any other feedback and constructive ideas are welcome …
Well, this year with the 25 licenses of 8, I don’t think anyone on our team uses 5 anymore. I still have it installed just in case, but I haven’t used it in a while. I’ve got a few things (gearboxes) built up in 5, but I suppose I could move them over to 8.
I’m thinking maybe some people with older/slower computers still use the earlier versions, but I don’t know.
I voted for Inventor 7, because when I need Inventor, that’s the version that I’ve got–but I typically use the SAT or STEP files with Pro/ENGINEER 2001 Student Edition, importing and converting as necessary. (Maybe I’ll get around to doing a whole project in WildFire eventually…)
But that’s just me personally, and not necessarily the team(s).
While this is likley to change, the computers at out school can just barely run Inventor 5. They run it so badly that I couldn’t do anything complicated with them. I ended up (with permission) installing Inventor 8 on my personal computer and left it at school most of the season, modeling and the like. We are working on getting awsome computer and either using all the Inventor 8 licenes and getting more, or buying about 32 copies of Inventor 9 or 10.
On a sadder note (and a little off topic), I don’t know if there will be a model of our robot next year. I tried to drum up enthusiam and teach Inventor. But no one was interested… Only I really know Inventor, and only about 2 juniors know 3D CAD. So it may be that it doesn’t matter or 617.
I may be mistaken, but I believe the 25 seats of Inventor R8 are actually an education release that have a 1 year time limit. I’m pretty sure I read this somewhere in the documentation. We have not installed our seats yet because I want to set up a class for the off season.
Me and our only other CAD guy use SolidWorks 2005, so we’re importing the IGES/STEP/SAT stuff, but we also use our Inventor license to take advantage of i-Parts.
You are right. They will last for a year. But FIRST sends out a new version every year. If they don’t, most teams will be without Inventor. I think that FIRST can get 25 seats of Inventor for a year for less than the 10 seats of Inventor that don’t expire. and it almost forces people to register again.
I lost one of my discs for 7 
So now I use 6.