What is Inventor?
Inventor is a software used to create sketches of 3D objects that can later be used to print them out on a 3D printer. To create a 3D part you start out by creating a 2D sketch of one of the sides of your 3D part. Depending on the shape you can either extrude the shape and be done or you might have to add another sketch on top to add any holes or any other piece to complete the part. If anything was added or taken away in your last sketch you extrude it again. You make all the sketches you need until you have your part ready to go.
Widgets
How to sketch out Widget 3:
1. This is the sketch I copied on to paper. It is the same 3D sketch that will become the part you see below.
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2. Selecting the XY plane allows me to see both axis'.
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3. I made a 2D sketch of the general shape.
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4. Next, are the dimensions, once these are in the shape really starts to look like the original.
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5. Once the general shape is down all that needs to be done is extrude it 1 inch.
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6. Since the original sketch has a piece cutout I had to sketch this triangle in it to make it work.
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7. These are just the dimensions to make the cutout piece the right size.
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8. This is the finished product once the second sketch was extruded.
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9. This is what the figure will look like once it is done printing. I had to make sure it was laying the right to prevent any overhanging plastic.
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10. Once put into Makerbot the shape will need to be scaled up to be the correct size within the printer. It needs to be scaled up by 1000% to be the correct size.
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11. This is the preview screen as you save your part to a flash drive. This screen gives you the option to see how the part will be printed out.
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12. This is the part printing. In this picture the part was not very far into printing.
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13. In this picture the part is more than halfway done. You can see the platform the part is printed on at the bottom of the part.
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14. This is the finished part. It took about 40 minutes to completely finish printing. The platform it printed on peeled off easily.
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What I learned
I learned a lot during the first introduction of Inventor. It was interesting to see the part go from a sketch on part to a real 3D object. The steps in between were a process. You first had to go to inventor and figure out things such as how many sketches it would take to complete the widget and you also had to get the dimensions just right. From Inventor we had to use Makerbot to get the print file to the 3D printer itself. Overall, without Inventor the sketch can't get from paper to an actual object.