Good 3D Modeling Program with VEX parts?

VEX V5 General Discussion
#1

This is my team’s first year starting ahead of our true competition season (we are all sophomores) and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for a good 3D modeling program that’s free. I already have SketchUp but I don’t have the files for the VEX parts.

This is mainly for myself and my team members to have a good visual with our designs that we put on paper. When school starts for us, then we will have access to SolidWorks which already has the VEX parts library within it for our engineering classes.

If you think we should just stick with paper and pencil, that works to.

Any comment is appreciated :smiley:

EDIT: I think we might have Inventor instead. I’ll have to check with our mentor. Regardless, I just need a simple one for a laptop even if it’s for a couple months

#2

I would use Inventor - a few forum members have released part libraries for it. Autodesk offers free education licenses for students.

I would recommend the parts library VEX has as part of their curriculum. Don’t worry about the “Inventor 2013” part; it should work fine with a later version of Inventor.

#3

I thought they only included the parts in the clawbot.

#4

No the library’s have all of the parts that vex sells. I’m not certain but some of the newer stuff may be missing it’s been awhile since I’ve had to download the files from vex but when I did it all of the parts were there.

#5

Many people are going to tell you to use Auto Desk inventor but I am going to recommend https://www.onshape.com This website allows users to create cads very easily. Also the website is completely cloud based so there is no downloads at all.
If you have questions on how to use Onshape to create vex robots PM me!

#6

Is there a tutorial on how to use it and a library of parts for it?

#7

Onshape has many tutorials it will give you on your first login, and you can find a library of parts on the vexforum

#8

This is great for what I need at the moment. Thanks man.

As for everyone else, thank you for your input.

#9

Onshape is web-browser based, so I don’t get the best performance as I do in Inventor. The performance difference is noticable with just a few parts (doing tutorial).

#10