Designing with Solidworks

A big part of our design work on this project involved Solidworks, a 3D modeling program. The use of the program is taught at VTC during the first year of our program, in Design Communication I and II. A webpage documenting the skills taught during Design Comm. II can be found here.

I've posted our physical models already, but we also built our "final" model on the computer as well. Creating a 3D model allows us to do several important things. First, it allows us to create all the individual parts and assemble them. It gives us the ability to quickly export the models of every part to 2D drawings which we can use when we build the parts. And perhaps most important, it allows us to quickly and easily make changes to both the parts and the drawings. 

Solidworks also has a host of simulation features. These consist of simple analysis, such as the approximate weight of a part or assembly, and much more complex operations like motion, fluid, and thermal properties. These are all helpful tools to aid in designing machines.

The ability to quickly create and edit a model really benefits us, especially since we have so little time to finish the project. Another important aspect of a computer model from a professional perspective is how easily the information can be shared between colleagues. In our case, I can make a change on the computer model, and my teammate will see the changes when he opens the model. And if we need to show our professor the results of a stress test or how we anticipate the model to move, we can send him a drawing with the information or even the whole model. 

So as you can see, having the computer model is incredibly important to quickly and successfully completing our project.