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Using CAD to improve your FRC design process

Manjiri McCoy and Jeff StraterSW Engineers, Autodesk

FIRST Fair 2013

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CAD in the FRC design process Why you should use CAD Tips for simplifying CAD process Autodesk Fusion360 introduction Online resources

Topics for today

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CAD in FRC

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CAD on your team

Do you make CAD models at all? If so, what is it used for? Just documenting

the design that you already built? Or, do you actually design parts of your

robot before you build it?

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Why use CAD for Design?

You can avoid problems before they happen Too heavy Dimensions are too big Mechanisms don’t work as you thought they

would Components are “in the way” that nobody

realized until you tried it out It’s cheaper to model in software than in

hardware Parts list for purchasing This is how real businesses design stuff You can make really cool

marketing/documentation as well

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But, it’s too hard to model the whole robot – that would take forever!

Don’t model the whole thing Only design the parts that are critical to success, or that

you have concerns about If you are re-using the drive train from last year, don’t model

that, just model the parts that are critical to the game Don’t model in too much detail

Tire treads are not necessary for analyzing your design Use the internet

There is a lot of designs out there that you can use GrabCAD FIRST Parts manufacturers

Divide up the design among multiple team members

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Autodesk Fusion360

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Using Fusion360 for your designs

What is Autodesk Fusion360? Cloud-based CAD for collaboration Direct modeling and a simple, modern UI Runs on Windows and Mac Support for mechanical joints to make

mechanism design simple Fusion (and all Autodesk software) is free

for students

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Collaboration with a team You don’t have to share computers or thumb

drives to have multiple team members work on the same design

Even a single team member can work on the design at school, at home, anywhere.

Mechanism design Fusion’s Joint command allows you to create

mechanisms very quickly Motion Link and Motion Study

Fusion 360 features of interest:

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Interference detection Can determine if parts collide Contact sets also useful for this

Mass properties Can show overall weight, volume, center of

gravity

More Fusion features

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Resources to use

GrabCAD: https://grabcad.com/home FIRST CAD info: http://

www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/cad-design-and-animation

BXD: http://bxd.autodesk.com/ Fusion hub:

http://fusion360.autodesk.com/about

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Demo

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