Anyone using SketchUp for CAD? Feedback?

VEX V5 General Discussion Technical Discussion
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I just came upon SketchUp Make (the free version) and Pro (the $49 student version). Our team does not currently use CAD, partly because of the technology requirements. We just don’t have PCs available of the calibre required to run Autodesk & Solidworks (you should see what we program on). However, SketchUp runs on a Mac, and that would open up access to all the girls on my team to use the software, and I see also that there are VEX parts in their 3D download library (user-submitted creations, I think).

Does anyone have any feedback on this product? Is it worthwhile to invest the time to give it a go for this next season? I’m pretty sure we would never be designing an entire robot in any program of CAD, but the ability to model sub-systems, or the connection between robot systems, etc. would have come in very handy this last year. Thanks for your feedback!

Leslie, coach, Team 1666

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We have a couple of students in our club that used Sketch-Up for their robots. From what I can pull together the learning curve is not as strong with Sketch-Up as it is with other CAD softwares like Inventor. I prefer Inventor because it’s what I am used to and it is commonly used in the industry, but Sketch-Up is powerful enough to design pretty much anything you want.

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