Quick, personal introduction: Hey everyone — before you get started on the CAD lessons, I wanted to share some quick info…

1. This should only take about 45 minutes to 1 and a half hours. It’s not meant to be long or annoying summer break homework, but instead an important opportunity to improve your skills and significantly strengthen our robotics team for the rest of the season and for years to come!

2. Just like last time, the first portion of this document is simply teaching. In this case, you will learn all about Assemblies! Unlike last time, its VERY IMPORTANT that you read though the teaching content of this document, following along when it says too. There are 4 mini tasks thought the teaching portion, which are…

   1. Following along with a 2 minute video (7 Minutes at most)
   2. Assemble a couple of cubes and cylinders! (5 Minutes at most)
   3. Install FTC Insert Tool Plugin! (5 Minutes at most)
   4. Use Edit in Context Tool (10 Minutes at most)

   That means together, the mini tasks will take you a total of 27 Minutes.

3. After completing the mini tasks, this year, instead of the main project being to design a phone stand, you will instead design a anything you want, as long as it uses assemblies, and at least one part studio!!

4. If you run into problems or start getting really frustrated while CADing, please DM me! This isn’t meant to make you suffer — it’s about helping you get better at CAD and preparing you to better support your team. Remember, CAD is hard, its normal to rage quit here or there, but its important to get those rage quits out of the way before the season begins!

Like last semester, YOU CAN DO THIS!!

Table of Contents (click to jump to that point in the document):

I know this looks long, but it shouldn’t take that long… But, please read it all, it won’t take that long, and will be very helpful :)

What are Part Studios & Assemblies?

Part Studio: Part Studios are what we previously went over in workshops or during the Winter Break CAD Homework. The whole point of a Part Studio is to create parts (pretty obvious).

Assemblies: Assemblies are completely new, however, still very important. In an assembly, you can combine parts (such as those made in Part Studio or parts that are imported) using tools called Mates. Mates are essentially connection points between multiple parts. Take a look at the video below for a quick introduction to Assemblies… It’s good to note that in assemblies, you can import other assemblies, which makes life easier when working on a complex project.

Starting an Onshape Assembly

You may have noticed the video is a little outdated, but its content is generally still correct, and any discrepancies should be self-explanatory.

How do Assemblies work? (5 Minutes)

As I explained above, assemblies are simply places to combine parts using mates. For example, you can assemble a door handle and a door using a Revolute Mate. A Revolute Mate allows for one of what we call an “axis of freedom.” In this case, the Revolute Mate’s “axis of freedom” is rotation. For example, in our door handle, the door handle can rotate around its shaft to open and close the door; however, the handle can’t move right or left independently of the door, which is why a Revolute Mate would be the perfect mate to model this situation.

Let’s apply a door handle, mate, as shown above. To do this, click the “Open Started Project on Onshape Classroom” button and watch the YouTube video, starting at 8:53, and continuing till the end of the video (only 2 minutes).