Exercise 14: Solidworks and the Vex

Exercise 14: SolidWorks and the Vex

Part 1: SolidWorks

SolidWorks is a 3D mechanical computer-aided design (MCAD) software package; arguably one of the most widely used CAD packages in industry today. In addition to mechanical design, SolidWorks can also be used to analyze and simulate the operation of your designs.

Today’s lab is a brief introduction to SolidWorks which is freely available to you via the NCSU VCL. There are no questions to be answered in this exercise, instead view this as an opportunity to become familiar with software that can help you create state-of-the-art mechanical designs. Proceed as follows:

 Create a SolidWorks folder on the desktop of your PC and store the file Gear28.SLDPRT in that folder.

 Follow the instructions in Connecting to the NCSU VCL to establish your SolidWorks 2007 session. YOU MUST KNOW YOUR UNITY ACCOUNT ID AND PASSWORD TO COMPLETE THIS STEP.

 Read and follow the instructions in the SolidWorks introduction to the VEX. The first 10 pages of the tutorial discuss the features of SolidWorks. This discussion serves as a reference that will probably mean more to you after you have worked the tutorial. Read this material, but don’t worry about developing a complete understanding on the first reading.

 Close your VCL desktop when you have completed the tutorial.

Part 2: The VEX

In this portion of the exercise, you are asked to become familiar with the VEX robotics kit. This will be a self-guided exploration. Your objective is to determine how you could use the contents of the VEX kit in creating a robot for each of your two class projects: a robo-billiards contestant, and a sumoBot.

Here’s a nice overview of the kit and an animation of constructing the VEXprotobot. You will need 14 AA batteries to make the robot run. Note: You will not be able to use the Vex radio transmitter control in your projects.