Who doesn't wish they had more of it... Yet when time opens itself up, we tend to squander it. Why do I delve into philosophy in what should be a technical blog? Who knows, maybe it reveals some repressed emotional programming within me, or maybe I'm overthinking it. Someone get Freud on the line. Anyways, back to the arm. Any serious engineer needs to often consider the fit and function of parts before constructing them. It isn't always feasible to construct prototype after prototype until you can nail dimensions and part design, especially for a mechanical assembly as complex as an analog for the human arm. Enter computer aided design or CAD. I've been using CAD for about 5 years now, starting with simple 2D programs, and progressing through Onshape, Solidworks and finally have arrived at Fusion 360. Now why Fusion you ask? No grand reason, I forgot the Solidworks license information I was given by the school. However Fusion 360 has some very interesting things going for it. For one, it's so much better on the eyes. I mean would you rather stare at this... Or this... For 8+ hours on end? Yeah I thought so.
Fusion also has one other major advantage over it's competitors, that being Autodesk's licensing policy. Whereas Solidworks must be purchased by any individual or corporation regardless of usage, Fusion offers free, full licenses for students and educators. Of particular interest in the included educational license is a full simulation suite. While running cloud simulations costs a fair chunk of change, client-side simulation is always free, providing you have the hardware to run it. Hurray for impulse buying an i7 last year! This is also another late blog post... whoops ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Anyways, for the second half of June, I was familiarizing myself with yet another CAD software. Fusion is a fairly standard parametric modelling program, so it's not too huge a jump, but things like assemblies and component construction is entirely different. Anyways, I'll end by showing you all how pretty a complete and total part failure under 500lbs of force in Fusion looks...
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AuthorMy name is James Falcon Doss. I'm a member of Severn School's class of 2020 and have a passion for all forms of engineering. Archives
May 2020
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