Inventor
Autodesk inventor is a program commonly used to design 3D objects. It is known as a software called a cad which stands for "computer aided design". it allows you to make drawings on different coordinate planes and extrude them to make many shapes and designs. This allows engineers to get a better idea of what they are working with when they are building something. Another thing inventor does is it keeps track of dimensions making it easy to create scale models of projects and even 3D print them with the same dimensions.
First before we could get to the CAD we had to sketch the pieces, we did this on isometric paper, then we were ready for the CAD.
In inventor I decided to make shape 5 which is shown above
First I clicked start 2D sketch, from there I clicked on a place and created a 1 in b 1 in square. I then clicked the extrude button and extruded it .25 in.
Then I clicked start a sketch on the top of the square and measured over with a line .25 in then created a .25 by .5 inch rectangle, then I extruded it backwards to cut out the rectangle. Then I clicked sketch again on the same surface and made a .25 by 1 inch rectangle and extruded it up .75 in.
This above cuts out the shape you extrude
Then I cut out the middle of the back piece by starting a sketch on the back wall and making a .5 x .5 rectangle in the middle then I extruded it back to cut it out, afterwards I started another sketch and used triangles on the back pieces and extruded them to cut out the pointed tops of the sides, thus finishing the shape.
Then I cut out the middle of the back piece by starting a sketch on the back wall and making a .5 x .5 rectangle in the middle then I extruded it back to cut it out, afterwards I started another sketch and used triangles on the back pieces and extruded them to cut out the pointed tops of the sides, thus finishing the shape.
Other CAD drawings I've designed
3D Printed Individual
We then started to 3D print a widget of our choice so I picked the same one. First we had to export it from inventor and open it up with the maker bot software. We scaled it up to 1000% and then we centered it in the 3D printer view.
After that we went into the settings and turned it on smart extrude +. After I saved it to my flash drive and plugged it into a 3D printer, then It began to print.
Then it printed my 3D widget for me to keep.