S.R.S. AUTODESK C.A.D. TUTORIAL 2

F1 CAR

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To design your F1 in Schools car, the DT department are recommending that you use Autodesk. This program will provide you with everything you need to design a world-beating car. The soft-ware is used by huge companies across the world to design and manufacture products. If you are interested in a possible career in engineering, design, even animation, architecture or graphics, this suite of programs has everything you need and because huge companies use it, if you learn how to use it well, you are at an advantage. What is even better, because you are taking part in F1 in Schools, the software that usually costs 60,000AED is FREE for you to use for an unlimited time! Go to http://www.autodesk.com/education/free-software Although this tutorial will help you make a basic block (and then a car later on) the best thing to do is to play around with the program yourself to see what it (and you) can do. If you go to www.f1inschools.com/autodesk and download the software (Inventor) to your computer, you can have a go at home. It should also be on the computers at school for you to use. Even if you are not the car designer for your team, it is really important you learn how to use CAD softwarenot only to improve your DT levels, but to help your team mates, get a better idea of what is and isnt possible with your car and you may enjoy it and find you want to learn more!

As with any computer program, remember to SAVE your work regularly.

In this tutorial, you are going to draw the block for your car. Every block is the same, so there is no designing in this one, just following the instructions. Enjoy!

Open your block from before. Save it as Car so you always have a copy of a block if you need it.

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Now go to View on the Menu bar and go to Visual Style and then click Wireframe with hidden edges. Because you will now be cutting into the block you need to be careful you dont cut into the CO2 chamber. Then click Front on the view cube on the right of the screen.

You then need to do a 2D sketch on the front of the cube (remember how to do this from before). You need to use the spline tool to draw the shape you want your car to be from the side. Double click to finish.

You will be extruding this shape out of your block in a moment. How-ever, you cannot extrude a line, only a shape, so using a straight line tool you need to join together the ends (making it into a shape). Make sure the lines all join and there are no gaps. 4

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Finish the sketch, view it in 3D (so its easier to see the next part) and extrude. You now want to select the shape you just drew to ex-trude through the whole block.

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TIP! Save this part. There are lots more cuts to do.

We are now going to cut the block from the front (overhead view of the car). Create a 2D sketch then select the XZ plane (shown on the left how to select it). This will make it easier than selecting a face of the actual block later on.

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Use the line and spline tools to cre-ate only half the shape of the car (something like this). Again, join the ends up to turn the line to a shape.

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We are going to mirror this shape so it is exactly the same on the other side of the car. To mirror something you need a mirror axis. On the top right, select both construction and centerline

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Now draw a straight line right through the centre. DO NOT click finish sketch!

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Now click the mirror icon, shown at the top, where it says pattern. With select highlighted in the pop-up window, click all the lines you drew (not the mirror line). Then, click Mirror line and click the centre line you drew.

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After you click Apply it should mirror everything you drew to the other side. Now see if you can ex-trude these parts all the way through the block.

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TIP! Save your work!! Starting to take shape isnt it?!

Now you are going to draw on the right plane of the car. Select this part and draw a circle on the end as big as the whole end face. (Make sure you dont select inside the circle to draw!)

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Draw a construction, centerline through the centre of your circle. (Remember the dotted line shows when you are in the centre)

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Draw a shape a little like this. Remember you can zoom in if it is tricky to see. (Scroll your mouse wheel).

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You now need to join the end of the shape to the centre line you drew (we will mirror this shape in a bit).

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Select the trim tool on the toolbar. This trims/cuts lines you have drawn that over-lap. You then need to click some of the lines so you only have this outline left as shown above.

Select the mirror tool like you did before. Mirror this image (if you cant remember how, look back at your previous instructions). You then need to extrude this shape through the whole block. Again, try doing it without looking back at the instructions!

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TIP! If it looks something like this, save your work! Youve done most of the cutting now. Next you need to round it all off a bit and add the aerofoils.

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You now need to take the sharp corners off your car. The balsa wood is very fragile and will not keep a sharp edge. Even if it did, it would probably snap off during race/painting. There are 2 different ways to take the sharp corners off your car, a fillet (rounded edge) and a chamfer (straight slice). You can choose as a team what to use later on.

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Find and click one on the toolbar.

After you have clicked fillet or chamfer, click the edges (corners) of the car you want to round. (Remember, whatever you select one side of the car, select the same on the other to make it even). Then, in the value box, type a radius for the circle. Here 5mm has been chosen. It will preview it. Click the tick when happy.

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TIP! If you see an error message, the value you typed is too big and parts will start to overlap others. Make it a bit smaller.

TIP! Dont round the inside of the CO2 chamber. This needs to be left alone or the canister wont fit, plus you will lose marks. Save your work before the next part.

Now you are going to add the aerofoils (wings). We will do basic shapes now but you can experiment later. View it in a wireframe with hidden detail. Select a 2D sketch and choose the XY Plane as shown.

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View your car from the front and draw a shape like a wing near the CO2 chamber. (This one was drawn using 2 circles and 2 lines. The overlapping bits can be trimmed using the trim tool like before)

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Extrude the aerofoil. Because you drew it in the middle of the car you can set it to symmetrical and pull it out using the arrow and it will be the same on both sides of the car. Make sure you dont pull it out wider than what the original balsa block was.

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You will now have a car that looks a bit like this. There is something wrong with the CO2 chamber now though...

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To solve the problem of the aerofoil going through the chamber, simply draw and extrude a circle the same size as before to remove the bit inside.

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Finally, you need one more aerofoil at the front of the car to balance it out. Do the same as before by selecting the correct plane, drawing a sketch, extruding equally on both sides. The same problem may occur where the tether line slot gets blocked. Remove it with a rectangle extrusion

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TIP! Save your work! 8