Engineering Education for the Mechanically Inclined

Calling all cars! …and bikes, and canoes, and bridges –Part 2

Are you a student on a team or a faculty advisor for one? If so I have something that you really must check out.

SAE International and Autodesk are sponsoring a webcast event; Winning with Autodesk on Thursday, October 6th at 7 PM U.S. Eastern Daylight time.

While this webcast will focus on tools used primarily on the SAE sponsored these tools can be used for any Mechanical design or engineering project. This benefits secondary teams as well as collegiate.

We will be reviewing 2D conceptual design tools, complex freeform surfacing, 3D CAD, FEA, CFD, dynamic analysis, creating metal frames, electrical wiring diagrams and 3D routing, engineering based machine component design, and all of it will be delivered in less time than it will take to get pizza delivered.

Tell your friends, parents, children, pets, and even complete strangers to register for this webcast and see how YOU can win with Autodesk!

More Sustainability content on the Autodesk Education Community

A new series of videos focused on Design for a Lifetime have been added to the Sustainability content on the Autodesk Education community.

 

You can find them on the Education Community and it doesn’t even require a log in to see the content.

Check them out and don’t be shy about sending them to your friends, playing them in your classroom or showing them to anyone interested in engineering and design.

The Inventor secret EVERY student should know…

  So, you downloaded Inventor (yeah, I know, it’s big; but it will be worth it) and you’ve installed it on your home computer or an older laptop and you’re experiencing an occasional crash. Rather than tell you that’s a special feature we’ve built into return you to your desktop without having to tell Inventor to close your files I will tell you what the problem most likely is. Your graphics card.

  Before you do anything look at your system information and find out what graphics card you presently have. Then go to www.inventor-certified.com/graphics and see if there is a certified driver for you equipment. Note that a certified driver may older than your current driver. If you don’t have a card that offers a certified driver move to the next phase.

  If you have an older PC at home you could upgrade your video card but it’s a little difficult to do that with an older or non-workstation class laptop. Now this solution isn’t a cure all. If your Operating System isn’t up to the requirements or you have only a small amount of RAM you could still run into problems. With that said most of the systems I’ve worked with that have had issues I was able to correct with a few clicks of the mouse.

  Let’s try this:

1. First Open Inventor
2. Go to the Ribbon’s Tools tab > Application Options > Hardware tab
3. On the Hardware tab select checkbox next to Software Graphics
4. Click OK to apply the change and close the dialog
5. For extra assurance close and restart Inventor
6. What you’ve done to your system is disabled Inventor’s direct connection to the graphics hardware and drivers. Instead Inventor will send information on what it needs to display to to OS and it will communicate with the hardware much like any other Windows application.

  Inventor’s functions like Pan, Zoom, and Orbit may be a little choppier than before but it’s a small price to pay for stability and the access to incredibly powerful tools on a modest computer.

Re Cycling

How’s this for a recipe?

Take one Physics major with a penchant for Motorcycles, add one 1978 Suzuki GS550 (classic), mix in a couple of Solar Panels, batteries, and an electric motor and what do you get? Inspiration.

 Tony Coiro of Purdue University has created one of the most intriguing Electric Motorcycle* conversions I’ve ever seen. Many conversions mask the mechanics and don’t bother to attempt practicality. Tony’s conversion is relatively inexpensive, creative, functional and in a Mad Max kind of way; beautiful.

I first met Tony when he was working on a project team for the Purdue Physics Department and after awhile you get to know when someone is telling you what they're GOING to do, and when they’re just talking. Tony is one of those people who is DOING things, not talking about doing things.

If you meet Tony you will see the confidence of someone who knows that they can achieve what’s in their head. You’ll also find him approachable and very eager to show you his creation in a manner that encourages others to try things that they dream of. He and other members of the Electric Vehicle Club are taking matters into their own hands and learning things they’ll never be offered in a classroom.

If you’d like to know more about Tony and his creation check out a few of these links:

National Youth Science Foundation

Indystar

Trend Hunter

In case you haven’t already assumed so; a mind like this doesn’t just relax. Tony’s recently acquired a more sporting oriented chassis and has some fantastic plans that I won’t share here. I will just say that if you’re driving around Northern Indiana in the next few months and are suddenly passed by a bike that’s making no sound, be sure to wave to Tony. He’s riding the future.

*Yes, that’s Autodesk Inventor in the video

A new addition to the family

No, not a child but no less exciting (please don’t tell my kids I said that).

 Alias Design for Autodesk Inventor is now available for download on the Autodesk Education Community. This tool has the potential to allow students and faculty to explore a new connection between design and engineering.

Autodesk Inventor is an exceptional modeler and can create incredibly complex shapes by like all “3D CAD” systems you really need to have a good idea of what it is you’re creating before you begin modeling. On the other hand Industrial Design systems like the Alias Automotive application also on the Education Community allow you to radically change the model in ways you may not have anticipated that you would like to.

This is where the Alias Design for Autodesk Inventor comes in. It bridges the gap between the two allowing the engineer in Inventor to manipulate the part outside of the original vision for the Model. While not as flexible as Alias Automotive it uses tools that will be more comfortable for engineers. Industrial Designers will no doubt want to continue to use Alias Automotive and communicate using the linking to Inventor; but more and more often engineers are being called upon to make things look cool.

Please take a look at the links above to get preview of what is possible and then unleash that creative side! While, of course, staying safe and secure in the Inventor environment. It is the best of both worlds.

Bigger, Badder, Prettier and Easier than ever…

Autodesk Inventor 2011 is about to become public. It will be released to the Commercial customers first but you can bet it will quickly find it’s way on to the Autodesk Education Community and to the Education Institutions who have made the investment in Subscription.

So, in it’s fifteenth release what does Inventor have that makes it Bigger? How about Frame Analysis. Rather than doing FEA on a framework of standard metal shapes or having to use an arcane beam element analysis package we’ve built Frame Analysis into Inventor to leverage the Frame Generator that has been in the product for a few years now. The tools are quick and logical. I’m sure this will be a hit with the Student teams (Formula, Baja, Solar, Human Powered, etc.) who need to optimize their frames for weight and safety.

How about Badder? I know, not a word; but it should be and once you’ve done one of the seven built in tutorials for Injection Mold design and analysis you’ll see there hasn’t been a tool such as this added to a “CAD” package since Shaft (generator) was added to Inventor four years ago. I can hear you saying “…shut your mouth” already.

Prettier? There are engineering tools that are pretty? Why yes, thank you for  asking. Many of you have been using the amazing Autodesk Showcase tool that’s  available on the Education Community to show people your ideas in a visual environment without having to create renderings. Inventor 2011 this level of visualization built into not the rendering environment, but the modeling environment. As you’re creating an extrusion you can see it reflected on a counter top as a shadow is cast. You can also quickly switch between appearance modes for your model including or excluding wireframe elements, visible edges, or with realistic finishes.

Then there’s easier. The developers have upped the ante and even borrowed a few elements from other applications in the Autodesk Portfolio. Since the 2006 release AutoCAD’s sketching environment has had some tremendous enhancements. Inventor 2011 leverages the real time feedback on sketch elements but not to be out  done entering a value in the sketch preview dimension in Inventor creates a parametric dimension. Once your sketch is finished you just need to click on sketch entities or component edges and faces to be offered common tools for creating or editing the model. No need to go to the Ribbon or even use a keyboard shortcut. It’s all accessed with a click or two.

 

In addition to all of this there have been additional tutorials added to Inventor and they’ve even enhanced the Show Me Animations that I’ve told you about in the past.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…

Want to know why? Follow this link and register to learn more: www.autodesk.com/webcast

You will not want to return this gift. No need to send a thank you card either, I know you care.

A coming Golden Age

I’ve been thinking a good deal lately about where  the latest engineering  technology is leading and I cannot help but conclude that it’s too amazing to fully express.

 If you step back a handful of years everyone was focused on advancing the speed at which certain functions of the software happen. You can probably still find some companies reporting that their application can open a file faster or can create a fillet with one less click or things of that nature. I was involved in that game for quite a few years but there’s definitely something different going on now. In the presentations that I do for classes or Student groups the discussion isn’t about what an individual piece of software can do but rather how one piece of software contributes to the bigger process. By focusing on the communication required between all the people involved and how those people think about their task one can discover an entirely different world of possibilities.

As a Mechanical Designer or Engineer I may have no desire to look at the development of a product in the same way that an Industrial Designer or Electrical Engineer does but if I intend to contribute to the process I need to be able to access and leverage their creativity and expertise. This is where I find myself in awe. As I develop my skills with different applications that Autodesk offers I am able to better appreciate the very different methodologies used by different people. This expanded “world view” along with my existing appreciation for the ease of sharing information between these different software systems is affecting me on a personal level. I was trained in the era of “Hand CAD” when the Electric Eraser was King and the scent of Ammonia from the Blue Line machine filled the air. In those days and for most of the years since truly collaborating with someone of a different discipline in your company wasn’t undesirable or unnecessary, it just wasn’t possible. Things really were tougher then and it wasn’t a good thing.

I believe we are about to enter a new Golden Age of Engineering. This hope for an incredibly bright future has led me in my lectures to tell students that choosing a career in engineering today is akin to deciding to pursue farming the year the tractor was invented. Uncalculated as their choice may be they will none the less experience an engineering environment that is faster, easier, better, smarter, and less expensive than ever. I do not have to understand why the Electrical Engineer thinks we need an 18ga. wire between those connectors, nor do I have to tell my 3D design package what diameter that wire has or even what pins it runs between. I can simply focus on how I need to route it through the product and create documentation of what needs to be produced in the factory or by a vendor. It’s easier for me and better for the product and the customer.

The technologies are also merging at a deeper level than mere communication. If Autodesk software is used to enable people hundreds or thousands of miles to experience incredibly realistic environments in game play simultaneously, than why should I wait for a rendering to see  what a product will look like to the customer? Why can’t I see what the end result will be while I’m creating it? If manufacturing needs to create assembly instructions why can’t they simply access my assembly information to create animations using tools far, far simpler than any CAD system?  Why should the artist who created a vision of what a product should look like be concerned that the beauty of their design be lost because engineering has to “make it work”? Can’t their work be connected to the engineering models so the integrity is maintained by developing the shapes around the necessary components and then having that shape used by the engineer directly?

The last three years have seen the development of technology and collaborative capabilities my small brain did not think would be possible for several years in the future. If you are an engineering student or a working engineer take the time to discover what is going on and to explore the philosophy of Digital Prototyping. This new Golden Age will continue to amaze and delight and the only thing that I am certain of is that my dreams of what could be possible will fall well short of the reality that is just around the corner.

Student Community Inventor Download issues update

 You may have noticed some "happenings" regarding the Autodesk Inventor 2009 English download over the last few months. As with all things that grow rapidly it's not always easy to keep your legs under you. I regret that some of you have been affected by these growing pains. I've been embarrassed, frustrated, angered, and driven to use several "colorful metaphors" when I've received e-mails from students who've spent hours attempting to download software that didn't work.

 At this point the software should install properly. If not, please continue to inform us on the Education Community forums. There is another problem that we are still working to track down. It exists when you log in and receive an error when attempting to download most any software but in particular Inventor 2009. If you attempt to download Inventor and receive a message stating that a file is missing please look at the path of the file. For this particular problem the error will point to a file on your system and say that it's no longer available. This is a bizarre problem and I would ask that you please post this error on the forum and please start your posting with DOWNLOADER LOCAL ERROR. This will help us track down this issue.

 While we are working to rectify the current problems we are also preparing for the next release of Inventor and making plans to take advantage of the Autodesk Manufacturing Solutions Division offer to give even more help to make everything perfect from day one.

 To the tens of thousands of you that have downloaded and are successfully using Inventor; Thank you! Please, please, please explore the tutorials and the curriculum on the Education Community site and send me those "How do I?" questions. Oh yeah, and install the Content Center files. [Hint: There may be some great news on that in the near future too.]

Let's get Materialistic

OK. There's no way that it's been a full month since the last posting. Someone broke into the account and used a 'Way-back' machine to change the date. You know who you are, and you will be found.

 Melissa posted a piece awhile back on changing and adding colors to your Inventor parts. There's another level that allows you to change the physical materials of the parts. The process is similar but since the material properties are more important in engineering than the color there are some additional considerations and a few options for how you can work with them.

 The first step is to decide whether or not you plan to reuse a material or how easily you want others to be able to access it. If you only intend to use it once or just for yourself the process if very easy. Let's focus on these options as making a new material that is available to everyone is a simple final publishing step.

 To create a new material you must have a file open, I recommend a part file for simplicity. To find the materials that are currently loaded, go to the Format Pull Down and select "Style and Standard Editor". In this dialog you will see lists of different items depending on the type of file that you are working in. In a part file you should see a list of Colors, Lights and what we need; Materials. Expand the list of materials in the left window of the dialog and pick a material that is similar to the one you need. You can then right-click on the material and pick 'New Style' or just click on the 'New...' button at the top of the dialog. Give the new material and name in the New Style Name dialog and click OK.

 The new material will appear on the list. Double click it to make it the active material and make the changes to the material properties in the right window of the dialog being sure to click Save when you are done.

 The units in the dialog are fixed so you may need to do some conversions in order to be able to get the correct values entered.

 You can add as many materials as you need so how do you reuse them in other parts.

 To keep a material available for other models but not go through the process of adding them to all future Inventor models you can Right-Click on the material and select 'Export'. This will give you the ability to save a specialized .XML file of the material data that you can import into any future (or existing) models that you would like to apply your new material to. Note the 'Import' button in the lower left of the Style and Standard Editor dialog. That is what it is there for. Any material style that you export can be shared with others by giving them the file that you saved during export. It's very simple.

 To save it for automatic use you need to update the Style Library. This requires that your project file is set up to allow this. Edit you Project File and change the Value of 'Use Style Library' to "Yes". This will enable you to write style information back to the library. Then select 'Update Styles' from the Format pull down and be sure to tell it Yes to updating the new style into the library.

  This process is really easier than it looks and once you've done it you'll be able to remember how with little trouble. I would venture to guess it will take you longer to read this than to create a new material.

Have fun with Inventor and your new materials.