Plastic Antweight Robot
At the beginning of the year, my robotics team introduced the Plastic Ant Competition, a competition where other than electronics robots were made entirely of 3D printed TPU, to introduce new students to SolidWorks. I worked with a partner to create a robot to compete in this competition.
We were given the electronics, so the majority of the work we had to do was design the 3D printed parts of our robot. This was my first experience with a SolidWorks assembly and it was an amazing learning experience. Our design consisted of the chassis, the weapon, and the foam wheels. It was made to be able to drive upside down so there would be no worry of it having to right itself.
When we got to the assembly phase of the build, we utilised the efficient prototyping ability of 3D printing to verify that the design worked as intended. Once the design was finalised, we took it to the Plastic Ant Competition.
Takeaways
This project was a great introduction to modeling for a finished real-life product, and it was also a great introduction to SolidWorks assemblies.
Some things I learned:
When making a CAD model, make it as detailed as possible because it will save time and work when it comes to assembly, and it can catch problems
Take into account how parts will be manufactured and assembled when making the computer model of the design
Pay special attention to stress points like sharp corners when making a design where durability matters