Needs to work like SketchyPhysics

[Anonymous]

Fusion360 seems aimed at a user with some experience--SketchUp has a much easier learning curve--but the assembly and joint tools seem to be much more optimized and simpler than Inventor's. I don't know if your team has looked at SketchyPhysics (which is a plug-in for SketchUp) but that's really the best and most absurdly easy physics simulation system I've ever run into and it drives me crazy that I can't do anything similar with a more sophisticated program. 

Really--just hit Play, grab things, and toss them around; let balls roll down hills; drive cars through walls--I can spend a couple of weeks with SketchyPhysics and have my ninth graders doing stuff that Inventor can't approach. The thing's been stuck in beta without upgrades for like three years now; it's being made by some guy in his basement and I don't think he's even trying to complete it anymore. 

I can't imagine anything that would more improve a piece of CAD software--any CAD software--than for it to have that sort of functionality.