CAD Work

A Synopsis of CAD Experience

Computer Aided Drafting programs are perhaps the most awesome of computer applications.

I've had the opportunity to mess around with the following programs: (in relatively chronological order)

IntelliCAD
Autodesk AutoCAD
Mike's Lego CAD
Autodesk Inventor
SolidWorks

COSMOSWorks/Solidworks Analysis

Unigraphics / NX 4
Hypermesh 7 and 8
ADAMS View
Google SketchUp 6
ANSYS

By far my favorite to use is SolidWorks. It's the one I have the most experience with and it's a better GUI (especially mouse-wise) than the very similar Inventor. IntelliCAD was a free program that I messed around with when I first became interested in CAD (shortly after joing Pioneer's robotics team). AutoCAD and Inventor were first used in Drafting and CAD classes my senior year. I discovered Mike's Lego CAD (based off the LDraw LEGO parts package) when I needed something of the sort for a senior year class. I got Solidworks Student Version for free as a member of UM Solar Car Team. Likewise, I acquired NX4 and Hypermesh as a benefit of being on SCT too. The latter two I have almost no worthwhile experience with. The last one is a motion simulation tool. I've worked through a tutorial for it, but haven't had much time to play around with it.

And on to the pretty pictures!

Made with: IntelliCAD
What it is: Two perpendicular cylinders joined at a sphere

This is, I believe, my very first model in a CAD program. Wisely, I saved a screenshot of it.

Made with: IntelliCAD
What it is: A somewhat misproportioned model of fingernail clippers

This is my first real attempt at an object. I think I primarily used IntelliCAD's commandline to construct this. I realized afterwards that there were default units that the program had. Turns out that this is a pair of 6" long nail clippers!

Made with: MLCAD
Rendered with: POVRay
What these are: CAD versions of "robots" that I built with Legos (during high school)
Clockwise from top right:
- A "lugging" robot. Walks forward and can turn. Running the motor in reverse, it still walks forward. Never figured out the dynamics of that one.
- A remotely controlled Lego catapult that picks up and throws golf balls. It has its own page of details.
- A Lego ballista, powered with four of Lego's ridiculously weak solar cells. Takes 5 minutes to pull back...
- A three wheel, front drive, rear steer "car." I was inspired by the Peugot 20Cup.
- A model of a gear system that was used in an early version of the catapult.

These aren't in chronological order, and aren't neccessarily complete models. Of the above, only the three wheel car was made in MLCAD first, instead of being built and later modeled. MLCAD is a good program, but it's Legos, not much real world application there.

Made and rendered with: Autodesk Inventor 9 and 10
What this is: Two renders of CAD drawings of the sight that I use on my bow

This was the last real thing I made with Inventor. It's an assembly file with 16 unique parts. 95% of the work was done during my CAD class and senior year lunch time. It's rather accurately modeled after the actual sight which I own. I used a 6" ruler (1/64" and 1/100" markings) and labled paper sketches of multiple views to accurately recreate each part. This drawing won regional first place at the Michigan Industrial Technology Education Awards, and then an honorary mention at state level. The category was "Product promotion" and so by state level, it actually mattered whether the drawing was printed on glossy paper or not. (Mine wasn't.... probably would have been ranked had it been.)

Made with: SolidWorks
What these are: A grabbing mechanism for grabbing torus shaped innertubes. Roll cage for a certain car ;)

SolidWorks is my preferred CAD program... The rollcage was my first SolidWorks work, just after starting college. I learned how to effectively use the 'lofting' feature and 3D sketching as I designed and tweaked the model for several months. This included stress testing using the COSMOSWorks package within SolidWorks. Testing factored in material and idealized forces. The ideal design for this roll cage uses titanium (light weight, strong, but not cheap), but as a backup, steel would be used (strong, cheap, but heavy).

The grabbing mechanism was designed for FIRST Robotics' 2007 game. The red object in the picture is a red torus shaped innertube, similar to what you might see at a pool. I designed this the evening and day after the 2007 game kickoff in early January. I designed the claw in such a manner that I could build it, if the design was approved. The claw would be actuated by two pneumatic cylinders (my model includes rough mockups). I tested the range of motion of the claw using SolidWorks Animator. It's never been built, but I'd love to do so, given the chance!

I designed FIRST team 1015's robot for 2008 completely in SolidWorks.... the actual robot didn't do very good at all.

Tons of solar car stuff I've never posted would go here...

Screenshot of a bicycle sprocket (sans teeth) design in ANSYS. The load from the chain is applied clockwise, and leaves the sprocket at the top edge.

Taking EMA 405 during Fall 2011 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was an excuse to learn lower-level FEA stuff and get a taste of using ANSYS.

A 2'x1' layout of 1/32" carbon fiber parts for Numa. These were cut by waterjet via BigBlueSaw. Designed in Solidworks, and the final product can be seen here.

Carbon fiber is problematic to work with since cutting with a dremel shoots dust everywhere. I did an initial set of the chassis plates (the 4 large pieces) with a dremel none-the-less, but the second iteration added spares and leg brackets, which I didn't have the time or desire to do myself. I did use the dremel to drill a few hundred 2mm diameter holes (this shoots up much less dust than using a cutting wheel does).

-6-12-12