fusion 360 for Robotics?

[Anonymous]

Hello, I teach robotics at a High school. We are new
to using CAD software, but have downloaded and are trying to learn the
program Fusion 360. We are primarily using the program to make gears for our
robot that will be cut by a CNC machine. I am mostly working with middle school students and some high
school. Autodesk has a vast array of software and I am not sure if this
one is the best one for our purpose. What we originally liked about
Fusion 360 is the cloud based sharing of it. Would you suggest to keep
using the Fusion 360 program or is there another one better suited for
our needs? Thanks for your help! Paul

[AndrewSears · Accepted solution]

Hi Paul,

I manage the FIRST Robotics program at Autodesk and we see a lot of value for students using Fusion 360 when designing their robots as their CAD designs will carry over to other cool features available.  Since we have integrated CAM and Simulation abilities, this makes Fusion 360 a good choice to teach your students all aspects of robotics design, manufacturing and simulation.  

Feel free to continue using this forum for all of your Fusion 360 questions and contact me directly if you would like speak with someone from our education team.  They have a lot of really good teacher resources.

Are your robotics students in FIRST or is this part of your school program?  

Cheers,

Andy 

andrew.sears@autodesk.com

[dan.banach · Accepted solution]

Hi Paul,

I work in the Education group at Autodesk, and here is a list of my favorite Fusion Learning resources. Hope these help.

-Dan

FUSION LEARNING RESOURCES

• Get Started with Fusion 360:  Fusion topics such as fundamentals, CAM, Sim, Assembly, etc.  with videos, descriptions, and some activities.

• Fusion How to Videos

• Fusion YouTube Channel

• Fusion Tutorials and Classroom Resources: Autodesk Design Academy (Education site)

[dstevenslv · Accepted solution]

The education and maker markets are one segment in which F360 shines. Branching, forking, sharing and versioning are easy to implement.  It doesn't (yet?) have the functionality and flexibility of what something like a system like Git has for code, it's an out of the box easy to use.  Occasionally there are teething pains with regards to data availability but they are working on it.  You aren't going to find the package widely in use in general industry but the concepts and applications are portable in general to modeling/CAD.  Autodesk chose some different paradigms and terminology but the skills learned and methods used can be used generally in modeling/CAD and you'll get some simulation and CAM.

My grand daughter is an engineering student that has been involved with FIRST for a while.  The teams she's been on use student versions of a competing product though anything they've needed to do can also be done in F360.  I think it's a perfect fit for a FIRST team particularly if they are machining and cutting parts.

[Anonymous]

Hello Andy,

That sounds great. My school participates in the BEST robotics program. This was only our 3rd year competing and it has been quite a learning curve!

We would love to speak to someone from your education team to help us through this process. I will send you an email.

Thank you!

Paul

[Anonymous]

Thank you, that is great to hear! I will continue to my team learn Fusion360 then.

Paul