How to Guide Inventor

Inventor, produced by Autodesk, is the 3d solid modeling software currently used in the FIRST Robotics Competition (this guides target) and by our RoboCup Small Size team. The software can be downloaded for free at http://students.autodesk.com (you need a valid email address from a college ie. your @gatech.edu address). The most recent release is Inventor 2008 (which is what this guide will use).

Setting Up Inventor

In order to do anything you need to setup your project file. By creating this you can more easily keep track of just project X or project Y and have them on the same machine.

To Do This:

1. Go to File
2. Projects
3. Click the new button
4. Fill in the requested info

Note: There are many ways to get to the projects window.

Now you will have you new project listed in the project window. However when you start inventor you will not by default be working in it. To make this the default project just double click on your project in the list. Now when you start you will always be working with it.

Making a Part

First we need to create a part file. To do this File > New > Select Standard.ipt

Making a Sketch

Like AutoCAD (also made by Autodesk) Inventor has many shortcut keys (some of them are the same). To your left you will see two panels. On the top you have Model and on the bottom you have 2D Sketch. The bottom panel will change depending on what you are doing (Note: these are the default locations and these windows are movable). You will also notice beside each title there is a drop down arrow these provide more features which you can explore. Though generally you will not use these additional features.

Generally (by default) the top panel will house info about the current file you are in and the bottom panel will hold commands that you can use to create your product.

Lines

To do a line you can hit l and then click around to draw what you need to.

Circles

There is more than one way to make a circle. To specify a center point ... To make tangent... To...

Extrusions

In order to make your 2-dimensional sketch into something more tangible you will need to utilize various extrusions depending on your situation. Overtime you will figure out what your situation is and what to do.

Holes

It is better to you the hole tool when placing holes instead of drawing the into you sketch initially. This will allow you to edit them with out going back in to the sketch later and there for save you some time. It will also allow to specify the thread, the depth, if its counter sunk and so on.

Putting the Parts Together

Now that you have your parts lets put them together to make some sort of subsystem, product, etc. To do this you will need to create an assembly. Note: Assemblies can be composed of parts and other assemblies.

Ideally your robot's assembly structure could look like this:

1. Main Robot Assem
   1. Drive Train Assem
      1. Gearbox Assem
         1. Gears (Parts)
         2. Plates (Parts)
         3. Shaft (Parts)
   2. Frame Assem
      1. Tubes / Angle (parts)
      2. Bolts (parts)
   3. Manipulators
   4. Bumpers