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5. Snap-On Spacers by 3018V

For this year’s Make It Real CAD Engineering Challenge, our team had an extensive brainstorming session to decide on a lacking point in the VEX Robotics hardware.  After considering multiple ideas, we decided that the effort and time required to space out gears, wheels, and other mechanisms on shafts is a frustrating problem while building a robot.  In order to resolve this issue, we have designed the Snap-On Spacer.   Snap-On Spacers are an innovative variation of traditional VEX robotics spacers that bypass our original problem by allowing the easy attachment and removal of spacers while building initial prototypes and modifying previously built mechanisms.  We have designed Snap-On Spacers with a small notch cut out of the original cylinder of the spacer to allow the plastic to snap onto a shaft with ease.  This new idea for spacing means that spacers can snap right onto the shaft or screw without sliding it out, rebuilding all of the troublesome spacing, then sliding it back in. The spacer also has a small tab on the the outside of the cylinder so it can be conveniently and easily snapped on using pliers, even in tight spaces.  This design greatly reduces the pain and hassle of changing spacing on a robot.   To design our Snap-On Spacer prototype we used Autodesk Inventor Professional 2017. We chose this sophisticated program because we had some previous experience using it and liked the general look and feel of the software. Now that we have more experience modeling with Autodesk Inventor Professional 2017, we would like to brainstorm some of our future robot designs using the program.