Southern Illinois CAD Training

[rjohnson-4]

Last Saturday we introduced 32 FTC students and several mentors to Creo. All day our introductory class was taught by Jay Hunt from PTC and mentor of FTC Team 8620. The students went through the curriculum How to Model Almost Anything.

During the same day we held a advanced class that 8 students attended. Scott Cushman of the RoboRaiders FTC 7129 and Rande Johnson, a mentor of FTC8620/FRC4931, taught advanced mechanics such as gears and sliders.

We had students/mentors from ten teams, some driving 3 hours to attend our training day!   We would also like to thank FTC 8943 Oops! for providing the building in which we held the training day.

We'll be attaching the CAD agenda, and slides from two of the advanced sessions.  Contact us if you have any questions.

Rande Johnson

Mentor FTC8620/FRC4931

[rjohnson-4]

Here are the Windchill & Part Family slides from the advanced sessions.

The zip files are used for the part family training (see slides).

Please let us know if you have any questions, corrections, or suggestions.

[sm]

Thanks so much for sharing and big thanks to D. Jay Hunt‌ for mentoring and supporting the workshop!

[sm]

Fang Wang‌, this post has some nice attachments to help get you started with Windchill CAD Data Management.

[pposton]

That is amazing and great job.  Our team would like to do the same in Northern Nevada.  We are getting close to doing this, if not this year than next year.  Do you by any chance have a list of things to watch out for?  What I mean is any problems you had or anticipated and over came?  Thanks Team 5326

[sm]

Sure, there are a few things you can do to prepare for a successful workshop.

• Ensure all computers have the same version and properly licensed Creo software
• Ensure all computers have a 3 button mouse and power cord
• Ensure there are no internet access issues at the workshop location
• Ensure there are no firewall blockers at the workshop location
• Ensure all participants have an active PTC account and know their password
• Ensure all participants have been invited to a Windchill Project, have accepted their invitation, and logged in at least once
• Determine if participants will use electronic or paper materials (paper is expensive, but electronic can be cumbersome)
• Give participants as much time as possible to work independently
• Take breaks, offer snacks and drinks
• Facilitate open discussion of the exercises and check in with all participants to make sure they are not falling behind
• Get participants involved in the workshop; ask questions, give real-world examples, share industry stories
• Allow extra time to setup and pack up the room (best practice is to ask participants to help on the way in and out)
• Have a subject matter expert on hand or validate the exercises and curriculum before starting (there will be questions)
• Ask participants to watch videos on Welcome to Learning Exchange! to make sure they have a basic level of understanding
• Ask participants to watch archived RoboTALK recordings on the FIRST Community to familiarize themselves with a broad range of topics

[pposton]

Hi Again Scott,

Thank you so much for this list.  This will help a ton.  We hope to have our own PTC Workshop in the next month or two.  Thank you for your help.

[rjohnson-4]

Patti,

We're offering the same training class in Southern Illinois again this weekend 10/22.   It went pretty smoothly last year and we're hoping for the same this time.   I can post updates in this thread (or create a new one - Scott?  preference?). 

Likewise, feel free to email me if you have specific questions.   I'll be happy to send you the flyer we sent out and any other supporting materials, though most are already provided above.  I only have two warnings for the training - 1) make sure students bring a mouse if they bring their own computer, and 2) make sure you cover basic local vs. cloud storage with Windchill before you start using it with your team.

It's darn near impossible to use Creo without a real mouse - the trackpad and buttons on a laptop just don't do the trick.   We had a few students with laptops only, so had to scrounge up a few mice at the last minute.   We're going to have some on hand this time around.

As for Windchill, we had some students (still do) that don't keep their local work space cleaned out, giving us a few fits with checked out files.   We also love the new intelligent fastener, but it's got some quirks when it comes to Windchill.   Hoping to explore those a little more and possibly provide a separate post or presentation.

We hope to get some of our students to post short videos on various Creo topics.  Stay tuned.

Rande Johnson

FRC 4931 Mentor

[sm]

Rande Johnson‌, yes, you should promote the new event with a new posting