Hey, I was wondering how you all learned how to use Inventor. I learned from the Project Lead the Way Introduction to Engineering classes at my school…
I believe the best way to learn a CAD program is to just get it and start playing around…i normally start off with the simple stuff then i just keep working at different things until i have a lot of the stuff down…
I’m also taking the Project Lead the Way class out my school.
I used the brochure that came with the demo version, then I went on with the tutorials in the help function.
I’ve learned it by myself just trying each thing. It’s not something you can do with 3D max, but with Inventor it seems to be enough to use most of the program. Of course I missed many things and I wish I had opportunity to learn everything about the software.
I learned how to use inventor with the help another team member.
Well for the most part I learned it from my engineering drafting class. Except for the teacher didn’t know how to use the program either. So we had to learn from the tutorials and each other. A bunch the students now know how to use it better than the teacher.
I learned it at the camp that VCU held last summer. Unfortunately, I couldn’t buy the software then, and I probably need a refresher course to jump my memory.
We have a professional mentor who teaches anyone on our team who wants to learn.
I used the tutorials in the help function. Some of them didn’t work though 
Project Lead The Way, all the way baby!!! Its great to see the spread of PLTW through the FIRST community since it started with my teams founder, and has grown from a little community near albany new york to 40 (i think) of the 50 united states!
Check it out at www.pltw.org and reccommend it at your school!
~Mike
I learned the main things in like a day… I started CAD 2 the second semester of classes and um had like less than a month to complete the Inventor Competition with the help of my teacher…
This award was only done by 2 people… 1 newbie (myself) and my teacher (has not used inventor all that much but knows more than anyone else on the team)
I did the Arm and some other parts and my teacher did the drive train.
I was self taught, but I had used SolidWorks and standard Autodesk CAD for a few years. It was easy to figure out after self teaching the other CAD systems. After I knew how to use it I helped others on the team and my drafting class.
Umm let’s see. We had 2 computers and 4 students. I tinkered w/ Inventor 5 last year in my free time and this year I figured out most of the features by trial & error and some advice from a college student… either way, I wished we had more computers.
Inventor isn’t hard to learn, the biggie is to know the shortcuts (easy ways to do otherwise complicated tasks). For example, importing CAD files properly w/o open loops, fiddling w/ the work planes, and using iParts (BIG timesaver)
After the animation deadline, my little Inventor group finally got the necessary machines so that all 4 of us can work. I wished we full time mentors who knew Inventor or a class in school that taught the software, however, we’re very proud of our submission because it was a learning process of everyone and 100% modelled by students.
You can take a look at our submission at http://www.roboraiders.com/design/ It still surprises us that most teams couldn’t find our submission from our homepage even though we uploaded the bulk of the site weeks before the Inventor deadline.
Enjoy!
JP Ren
Team 75 - RoboRaiders
I knew AutoCAD before I did the litttle bit of Inventor I learned. The rest of our crew (all MUCH more involved than me) learned on their own.
I knew a little bit of rhino, 3dmax, viz, and autocad before the season but we had workshops for our whole technical team and some of our other teams to learn the software at the beginning of the season before kick-off. I didn’t see the relavance for the electrical guy to learn it so I blew off the tutorials…so when the build season came around and i had to layout our electronics and make sure of weight and size of everything i had to learn it all as i went. Now i’m one of the head cad people on my team.
I learned Inventor by just messing around with it… a lot of it is simple , and self explanatory.
Now MAX on the other hand…:rolleyes:
during the preseason, the college mentors taught inventor to themselves and learned along the way throughout the pre season training. then we went and set up many weeks worth of workshops in order to get all the technical HS members CAD/Inventor savvy. it really worked out well. this is one of the best organized and design friendly robots we have had and its all due to Inventor. many of the kids are extremely profficient w. Inventor now and the rest of the tech team is competant in it.
personally, i learned Inventor pretty much through our advisor project. each pre season the advisors give themselves a project to accomplish. this year it was designing a tank-tread drive train. i did most of that Inventor work and really got to know it. also, learning any CAD package well is just hours and hours in front of the computer working on it. I was one of the main CAD guys this year so that gave me a lot of practice and learning. now I am off to bigger and better CAD packages. this semester i took a computer graphics technologies class in CATIA and it was awesome.
-Raj-
*Originally posted by dez250 *
**Project Lead The Way, all the way baby!!! Its great to see the spread of PLTW through the FIRST community since it started with my teams founder, and has grown from a little community near albany new york to 40 (i think) of the 50 united states!
Check it out at www.pltw.org and reccommend it at your school!~Mike **
Project Lead The Way is awesome… it introduced me to great programs like Inventor :). Then again, it also introduced me to evil ones like MasterCAM. :mad:
To all you PTLW people: What classes have you taken/are you taking?
I’m currently in CIM and POE, I took IED last year and can’t wait for Digital Electronics next year 
i have taken cad2, cim, Digital Electronics, POE, and am taking EDD next year!
~Mike
Well, in relation to this, I’ve taken Mechanical Drafting 1 & 2, CAD 1 & 2, and if I get into CAD Engineering next year, I’ll be learning to use inventor. I’ve seen people use it, but I haven’t used it yet although I really want to.