Procedure for setting up of Projects, Folders and First Design

[Anonymous]

Could someone please take the time and look over what I have put together in explaining the proper method for detemining the set up of Projects and Folders?  I am to begin teaching Fusion 360 to elementary students and wanted to provide something visual for them to better understand why attention needs to be given to setup of needed projects and folders especially in the way of components that may need to be in their own folders due to being commonly used components.

Thanks in advance for your time.

David Byram

dcbyram@gmail.com

[jakefowler]

Hi David,

I'm sure there are others who are more experienced with data management than I - and who might be able to offer more nuanced advice - but this looks reasonable to me. Since Fusion supports both top-down and bottom-up design, there's no 'right' way to do things; it looks like you're taking a hybrid approach, which tends to work very well 🙂

One question I did have: the second decision step on the flowchart is 'Is this an assembly?'; how are you determining what qualifies as an 'assembly' here? Following either route, it looks like you are going into a loop of creating multiple Components within the single Design. So are you drawing a distinction here between a master assembly vs. subassemblies? Or subassemblies vs. parts (and just assuming that a 'part' can have >1 component)?

Also, are your students going to be working together on projects, or just individually? If working together, it probably makes sense to break the master assembly into subassemblies as seperate Designs, so that students can work concurrently on different parts of the master assembly. Since the second page only shows 1 Fusion 'assembly file', I wasn't sure whether this had been factored-in.

If you had more general questions about preparing for this class, let me know if you'd like me to put you in touch with someone from our education team.

Thanks, and wish you a happy new year,

Jake

[Anonymous]

Hi Jake,

  Thanks so much for responding.  The intent for the second decision maker is so that someone remembers to make a folder for any assembly or subassembly where components are designed to be in the folder "internally" and going to other folders set up for generic or commonly used components such a library of components.  Especially since component linkage is important, I felt it important to determine upfront was is an assembly or just a component.  Make any sense?   I am new to Fusion 360 having used Inventor and SolidWorks for over 10 years now.  I put the flow chart together as I worked on a example project where a subassembly was being made that could be used elsewhere but used library parts that would be linked to their respective folders and drawings.  In either case, there are components in both the subassembly and library areas.

  There will be about three groups of students, probably three or four to a group, all having a part in designing something.  Hopefully I have not made it more difficult to understand.  The graphical file I believe shows it better and will relate to the students more than the flowchart, however I wanted to expose them to the method.  I would not mind having the contact info you offered.  I am hoping to be soon not only teaching the elementary students, but also middle school and hopefully Inventor to the high school students.

Thanks again.

[TrippyLighting · Accepted solution]

There is really no benefit in using linked components for fasteners and for purchased components. Using linked components is a powerful feature but as with al powerful featurest comes with a few caveats. 

Use linked components only for your own designed, reusable compoents. In essence for things that might change during the course of the project.

One recommendation based on 25+ years with CAD software and almost 30 years in Engineering. I would actually not show them the chart!

Let them try and fail. Often and quickly. This is software, failing s free 😉

The more often they fail and the quicker they fail the more they learn and it sticks much better.

[jakefowler · Accepted solution]

Hi David,

Thanks for the clarification. How granular were you planning to go with distributing 'components' amongst separate files? The biggest difference between Fusion and traditional CAD (and I would say biggest advantage 😉 ) is that a single Fusion file contains the definition of both the assembly structure and part geometry.  So you have the potential to represent an entire product (all parts + all assembly relationships) in a single design document. Of course, there are many situations (e.g. working collaboratively, shared components) where there are advantages to splitting the design up and create linked relationships between the chunks. But in Fusion, as TrippyLighting alluded to, you might be best off trying to minimise the number of linked documents used to represent a model - this can make life simpler from both a design and data management perspective. You certainly don't need to go down the Inventor/SolidWorks route of creating separate files for each part, then building assembly relationships in dedicated 'assembly' files.

The proposed folder structure seems sensible to me, but this 'file granularity' (i.e. how much of the design does each file contain?) is something to consider, especially for larger projects. It's not something you really had much control over in traditional mechanical CAD, but it's something to take advantage of in Fusion. (Let me know if this isn't clear!)

And, I will get in touch with the education team 🙂

Thanks,

Jake

[Anonymous]

Thanks TrippyLighting,

  You are correct, having the fasteners linked would not be needed.  I am still thinking in the Inventor/SolidWorks realm of logic.  If components such as fasteners would be stored in the cloud in its separate folder, would I be using up more storage space?  Or is it just better to just insert them from the web source such as McMaster-Carr.  I also use a lot of Misumi product so I would assume I would have to download as separate step files and then import them into Fusion.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Jake,

  I agree, limit the linked files to just what will know to be in other assemblies or subassemblies.  Are they planning on adding other web download sites such as Misumi?

[blaster701]

David,

Please let me know if I can be of assistance, I work on the Fusion Education team.

Thanks,

Jeff Smith

[TrippyLighting · Accepted solution]

Before continuing this intersting topic I'd like to spend a minute and think about the intended target audience.

What we are discussing here resembles more of a structre for a commercial design and product - likely some form of machinery - that is to be manufactured. 

For an introduction into Fusion 360 for elementary students that may not all have a firm grasp of computer basics and file and folder management this structure maybe unnecessary. I'd even argue it can be hurtful to present students with too much of pre-digested structure - that applies to all age groups - as it prevents critical thinking of why it is helpful to have such a structure and then perhaps to explore with the kids how that has to look like.

I find that Fusion 360 has a lot more to offer than just machine design and as a result a project structure for an exploratory (consume) product design is likely to look different than a structure for a machine design.

Your particular background seems to be machine design, in more traditional software packages. Have you worked in the T-Spline and Patch environments yet ?

Have you discovered yet how these interconnect ?

If not, you may be shortchanging your students into only learnig one particular aspect of this tool becasue that's the one you are familiar with.  Be minful of that 😉 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Jeff.  If you could send me your full email address I would appreciate it.

David Byram

[Anonymous]

Thanks TL,

  No have not looked into T-splines or patch but will.  I agree that I may be putting too much important on the file structure rather than just fundamentals for making parts especially for the elementry level students.  Thanks so much for the suggestions.  Since there is not much left to the school year, your suggestion makes good sense.

[blaster701]

Please send me a note.

Jeff Smith, IDSA

Education Program Manager | Autodesk, Inc.

O 786.899.5967

C 954.818.2336

https://www.instagram.com/blaster701/