SharpAI CAD
Look at the robot.
Export a part, an assembly or the whole robot from Onshape and look at it here, on our own site, without an Onshape account or a CAD install. Useful for design review, for a new member who has not been given access yet, and for arguing about a mechanism from a phone.
What Onshape can actually do
The viewer above shows finished geometry. This is the feature set that produced it. Onshape is free for FTC teams and runs in a browser, which is why it is the practical default, but the features below exist under the same names in Fusion, SolidWorks and Inventor. Ask Sharp about any of them.
Core CAD
- Part Studios
- One space holding several related parts, so mating faces are built from the same sketch and cannot disagree.
- Parametric modelling
- The model is a recipe rather than a drawing. Change an early number and everything downstream rebuilds.
- Sketching
- 2D profiles locked down by dimensions and constraints. A sketch that is not fully defined moves when you edit it.
Creating solids
- Extrude
- Push a closed sketch a distance. Plates, brackets, blocks, and every hole cut in reverse.
- Revolve
- Spin a profile about an axis. Shafts, spools, pulleys, spacers.
- Sweep
- Drag a profile along a path. Tube runs, bent brackets, belt clearance.
- Loft
- Blend between different profiles. Transitions, funnels, tapered guides.
Modifying solids
- Fillet
- Round an edge. Internal corners for strength, external corners for hands and wiring.
- Chamfer
- Cut an angled edge. Lead-ins on shafts and bores, and easier to machine than a fillet.
- Shell
- Hollow a solid to a wall thickness. Fails when the wall exceeds the smallest internal radius.
- Draft
- Angle a face so it releases from a mould, or so an overhang prints without support.
- Rib
- A thin web that stiffens exactly along the line where a part bends, for very little mass.
- Hole
- A specified hole carrying clearance or tap size, counterbore and depth. Not an extruded circle.
Repeating and combining
- Patterns
- Linear, circular and curve. One edit updates every instance, which a copy does not.
- Boolean operations
- Union, subtract, intersect. Subtracting a modelled envelope is how clearance is guaranteed.
- Mirror
- Reflect about a datum plane. Half a robot is usually the mirror of the other half.
- Transform
- Translate, rotate or copy whole bodies. For positioning finished parts, not for building them.
- Move face
- Push or rotate a face without editing its sketch. For geometry whose dimensions you cannot reach.
Geometry you did not author
- Direct editing
- Editing shape that has no feature history, such as a vendor STEP file.
- Imported geometry
- STEP carries exact geometry and is what you want. STL is triangles, so never dimension from it.
- Surface modelling
- Zero-thickness geometry, then thickened. Right for sheet material and for repairing imports.
- Mesh workflows
- Scans and downloaded STLs are reference for bulk and clearance, not a parametric model.
Driving the model
- Variables
- A named value defined once and used everywhere, so a tolerance change is one line.
- Expressions
- Arithmetic in a dimension field. Records the relationship rather than today's answer.
- Equations
- One dimension driving another, so a longer rail gains the right number of holes by itself.
- Reference geometry
- Planes and axes. Construction scaffolding with no mass that features can safely attach to.
Each of these is taught properly, with exercises, in Telemark Module 5.