Make it Real CAD Engineering Challenge
mheng1997
Entry ID #: 2257
Created: Tue, Jan 12, 2016 2:08 PM
Make it Real CAD Engineering Challenge The design of the part is derived from a standard vex hinge. The problem with the VEX hinge is that the VEX hinge was designed with a near frictionless rotation. Although this is not necessarily a problem since the part was designed to do that, the frictionless rotation does not allow the part to hold a specific angle to mount pieces on. For many of our applications during competition we require a part that can hold a specific angle. For example during some competitions, our design requires a cage to be created to hold the balls and without an angle piece, creating that cage becomes quite difficult. Without an angle piece our team would have to create a cage by modifying existing pieces. The part that we designed is meant to act as a joint in order to create specific angles to mount other parts on. This part could potentially eliminate a lot of our problems and possibly help not only our team but a lot of other teams in VEX who face this problem. The design of our part is 1in x .38in x 1.88in when fully assembled and 1in x .38in x 1.13in when disassembled. The friction shaft is 1/8in in diameter to allow for any 1/8 in rod to act as a shaft so that the piece can be assembled. One of the pieces in the part also has a built in shaft collar so that the fully assembled part can be secured into any specified angle. Each separate piece also has a slot built in, so that the user can slide a standard 1x25 VEX bar into it, to serve as the boundary for a cage or for any other purposes. Each separate piece also has two .25in holes drilled in to act as a place to screw in the VEX bar using standard VEX screws. This part fits into the final VEX design because it replaces the need to bend or modify existing pieces. Bending or modifying existing pieces lowers the quality of the piece until it is finally broken because the pieces isn't designed for the purpose that it I used it for. Having this part could potentially save a lot of stress and money because you have a part that is designed to do what most people need which is a part that can hold an angle. This part was designed in Autodesk Inventor Professional 2015. I originally drew a rough sketch of this model on paper and then a more professional scaled drawing with the dimensions I needed. Transferring the drawing into Inventor was fairly straightforward since the separate pieces is only a circle and a square. After drawing both pieces of the design I combined both of them in an assembly, .iam, file, to test how well my part would rotate. After turning, I completed the part as an assembly drawing. I exported the part as a .stl file so that the part could be printed from our in school’s 3D printer. Since the part was a fairly basic shape, it was very easy to print using our 3D printer. During this project I learned many things including to scale and print objects on our 3D printer. I already knew how to use the basic functions of our 3D printer before doing this project so drawing the part wasn’t a challenge. I will definitely be using Inventor and fusion in the future because being able to design a part is useful in prototyping an object. Before I learned how to use Inventor, I would have normally have to draw and make the part I needed by hand which would take a very long time. However, by using Inventor in combination with a 3D Printer, I am able to design and make a part in a fraction of the time it would take to make everything by hand. Inventor helps anybody on a VEX robotics team because inventor allows teams to design and put together an entire robot digitally (using the available VEX part files). This eliminates the stress of having to design and build a robot, only to realize that the design was impractical and the robot needs to be redesigned. Drawing the robot in the computer also allows a member of the team to work on the programming while the other members simultaneously build it. Normally, the person programming would have to wait for the robot to be built so that they could program it. Being able to use Inventor does assist and aid me in my career path because after college I want to be an aerospace engineer which requires a lot of knowledge in CAD based software.
