Introduction to Solidworks
User Interface, making your first part and assembly.
Last updated
User Interface, making your first part and assembly.
Last updated
Welcome to Solidworks! Solidworks is a powerful CAD program that we will use to make our first combat robot. This and the following pages assume you have a machine with Solidworks on it, ready to open. If you haven't installed Solidworks yet, go to the Installing Solidworks page.
Parts - The basic building blocks of your robot
Assemblies - Contain parts or even other 'subassemblies'
Sketches - 2D drawings that define aspects of a 3D model
Features - Using one or more sketches to create 3D geometry
When you first open Solidworks, you'll see a page similar to this one:
If your home screen doesn't look exactly the same as mine, that's ok. Let's jump into making our first part.
Solidworks has built in tutorials that make learning the basics very easy. TRUST ME THESE ARE WORTH YOUR TIME. You can find them by clicking the "Learn" tab:
Then click "Step-by-Step Tutorials":
Solidworks will automatically change your view to look like this:
Ignore the first two that are listed there. We're interested in "Lesson 1: Parts" and "Lesson 2: Assemblies". Click them and they'll guide you through the creation of your first two parts and putting them in an assembly. If you want a video to help you with the first tutorial, you can check out this one by GoEngineer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKSo99hGDd4 even though it's a little dry, it'll help you follow the tutorial step by step and give some tips along the way.
With the knowledge you gain in these 2 tutorials, we can start designing our first robot!
(If you want to continue the built in Solidworks tutorial, which is completely optional, I recommend you go to the 'Basic Techniques' tab and go through from 'Fillets' to 'Surfaces' tutorials in order.)
