Anybody using Mathcad to design your FIRST FRC/FTC robot??

[JoshH]

I just want to throw this question out to the community. Are you using Mathcad in any way, shape or form to help design your FRC or FTC robot?

As a mentor, I'm just dying to use this stuff, I just haven't found the time to implement it and don't have the teacher involvement to help...yet.

I would love to hear ways that other teams are using Mathcad.

[ItzikBenShabat · Accepted solution]

yeah, we are using mathcad. We used it in the calculation of the transmission and motor for our robot. (you know, friction, torq and rpm).

I saw a lot of excel files published that do that but mathcad is much better for this purpose.

[JoshH]

That is great to hear Itzik!

May I ask what team you mentor/coach? Also, any chance that you would be willing to share the Mathcad document?

There is an excellent spreadsheet on Chief Delphi that I was thinking about converting to Mathcad. I just need to somehow find time to do it

[ItzikBenShabat]

I am mentoring team 3316 In Israel.

Sure I will share it (I was actually planning to). I just need to do some final touchups so everyone can understand it (not only me and my team) and ill post it here and in chief delphi.

[JoshH]

Thankyou Itzik, I will look forward to your post!

I would be interested to know how robotics are encouraged in schools in Israel. We are seeing great growth here in the central region of California, but it's sometimes challenging to get help from the schools.

By the way, your team seems to have a well-built robot last year http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1FKcM4fReo

Nice job!

[ItzikBenShabat]

And here it is! attached below.

Thank you for the compliments on last years robot. we had a lot of difficulties with it. the team was a rookie (And so was i - first time mentoring).

Well, I do the mentoring completely as a volunteer. Its amazing to see how the kids are excited about planning and building the robot (and its also hard to take the geeky computer kids of today and having them work with their hands drilling holes and all).

I dont know about general robotics here in israel but in the team i mentor, the school doesnt have a robotics lab or anything like that, so its basicly smart kids whom are good at math and physics that want to do something interesting after school.

What do you think about the calculations? its a bit rough i know but i took some presentations i saw and put them into mathcad and worked on it with the kids.

[JoshH]

Itzik, it is very similar here in California. Out of about 6 local teams, only one has a decent lab/machine shop. We get as much support from manufacturing companies as we can and then make do with what we have.

[ChrisHartmann]

Hi Josh (& other mentors interested in using Mathcad this year),

Before joining PTC in June I was a teacher and coach for 22 years so I know how hard it is to find that little bit of extra time needed to make the change from Excel to Mathcad this year. If you have spreadsheets that you would like translated into Mathcad, send them to -. I can convert them to Mathcad and then email them back.

Please make sure to send me your team information, so that I can give your team credit for developing the intellectual property. If you have a logo that you can send, I'll include that in the document.

Best,

Chris

Academic Program Manager, Mathcad

[DanMarotta]

Hi Everyone,

Itzik, thank you for offering up the worksheet. I know it will help out a ton.

I recommend uploading it as a [wiki]Document. That way teams can rate it and let you know how great it worked for them.

-Dan

[ItzikBenShabat]

All done,

what do you think ?

http://communities.ptc.com/docs/DOC-1629?uploadSuccess=true

[JoshH]

I think that is fantastic!!

This will be a great example for my team (and other teams as well)!

I think my goal after this season will be to work with the students to develop a librarly of commonly used equations...this will be a great example of where to start!

[ItzikBenShabat]

Its not mine so im not sending it but there is one motor calculator from JVN on chief delphi. im sure a lot of team will appreciate if you translate that (after asking JVN for approval ofcourse)

[JoshH]

I agree Itzik,

I requested approval from JVN last week to have it translated, but I have not yet gotten confirmation. It is a fantastic resource, I just can't quite picture how it will look in Mathcad.