What would you say if you could take a more-simplified concept model useful for quickly and accurately quoting jobs and then utilize that same model to jump start your detailed engineering design process? Sounds like a pretty great deal, right? If that's what you're thinking, then this will be a great class for you! We'll explore using the Factory Design Utilities software to quickly build concept models for the quoting and customer-presentation process. Specifically utilizing the Factory Design Utilities Connector technologies lets us easily "snap build" models together and transfer parameter values to maximize conceptual design efficiency. From there, we'll talk specific structure, utilizing virtual components within the concept model to drive BOM creation from real components, both standard library (non-changing) as well as custom-engineered parts with their associated drawings. This lets us save time engineering the model and integrate with data management systems, like Vault software.

During Autodesk University 2021, we shared a developed workflow for how designers can bring data together through designing the part, the PCB (printed circuit board), and even how to manufacture the plastic components. With the complexity of electronic part designs, there are often various aspects that we need to consider in order for the part to both work and perform as expected. In this class, we’ll demonstrate how the Autodesk Fusion 360 workflow has matured to incorporate mechanical engineering aspects to smooth this product design workflow. We’ll use a sample product, the Autodesk University Digital Badge, to demo how to integrate mechanical design requirements and simulation into the product design process.

Simulation DFM software loads inside your 3D design tool to give you near-real-time feedback on the quality of your plastic part as you design it. Simulation DFM software reviews things such as nominal wall thickness, draft angle, material cost, part recyclability, sink marks, fill patterns, and more, to grade your part in the categories of manufacturability, cost, and environmental impact. In this class we will look at how we can analyze the part files during the design process. We'll also investigate the effect a change may have on the ability to design the most efficient part while cutting down on design errors for molded parts.

What happens when some enthusiastic software developers team up with a few innovative mechanical designers? Henderson Engineers is an MEP design firm that’s been working on developing a modular DFMA (design for manufacture and assembly) air duct system for a while now, and has developed some clever Revit families and Dynamo scripts to help its designers model them. The firm joined forces with EvolveLAB, a building information modeling (BIM) consulting and software development company, to create a Revit add-in that focuses on the real-time generative design of these modular duct layouts. In this session, we’ll review how these companies used some unique properties of the Revit API to create a co-authoring system that allows a mechanical design to sketch out a main duct layout in Revit while the computer simultaneously and continually produces the most optimal layout using the DFMA kit of parts for that sketch—which is then finalized and converted into a fully connected Revit duct system.

Many new product development projects involve small (or large!) assemblies that are going to be designed from start to finish. Many facing this task go about it on a piece-by-piece basis—modeling one component from scratch, opening a new file, modeling another component from scratch, switching back and forth between the two to ensure that mating interfaces are dimensioned accordingly, trying to reference numbers from one file to the next, and writing down parameters to reference at a glance. This class will cover how to cleanly organize an assembly built from scratch entirely in one file. Learn how to organize a model tree with labels and use best practices when modeling parts, and how to utilize named dimensions and parameters to make on-the-go changes a breeze. Discover how to utilize adaptive modeling to enable making one change that can flow through all the mating parts in an assembly, and how to do so without making your model fail or explode. And learn how to simultaneously set up a component for simulation.

Manufacturing tolerances have a significant impact on cost and quality. Tradeoffs can be made to ensure proper fit; however, calculating stack-ups manually introduces the potential for errors. Autodesk Inventor Tolerance Analysis is designed to help Inventor users make informed decisions while specifying manufacturing tolerances. Inventor Tolerance Analysis is a CAD-embedded, 1D solution that helps understand the mechanical fit and performance of your design based on dimensional tolerances. Stack-ups automatically capture the relationships defined in the assembly model and customers using Model-Based Definition capabilities can edit tolerance values directly inside Tolerance Analysis, further streamlining the process between design and manufacturing.

Manufacturing tolerances have a significant impact on cost and quality. Tradeoffs can be made to ensure proper fit; however, calculating stack-ups manually introduces the potential for errors. Inventor Tolerance Analysis is designed to help Inventor users make informed decisions while specifying manufacturing tolerances. Inventor Tolerance Analysis is a CAD-embedded, 1D solution that helps you understand the mechanical fit and performance of your design based on dimensional tolerances. Stack-ups automatically capture the relationships defined in the assembly model and customers using model-based definition (MBD) capabilities can edit tolerance values directly inside Tolerance Analysis, further streamlining the process between design and manufacturing. The Tolerance Analysis plug-in is a subscription benefit for all Product Design & Manufacturing Collection customers. Join us for this Tolerance Analysis Lab, where you’ll be able to get your hands on the software and put it through its paces!

See a practical example demonstrating how our customer Vimek AB integrates the built-in simulation and calculations tools in Autodesk® Product Design Suite as a natural part of their mechanical design process, starting with the conceptual phase. This class gives you easy-to-use-and-adopt examples covering free body diagramming, early conceptual dynamic simulations that will give you the most important sizing factors of the final design even before you have created a single new 3D solid! The class also covers how you use the reaction forces from the motion to perform finite element analysis (FEA) calculations and optimizations.

This class will be an introduction or reintroduction to Inventor mechanical design and 3D CAD software. It will also go into general detail about many of the common issues that come up on the Inventor forums. It is generally understood that there are more intermediate and advanced Inventor software classes at Autodesk University; however, sometimes you need to go back to the basics to discover or rediscover some of the features you might not know about or understand-whether they be hard to find, or confusing to know how to use. This session will feature Inventor Professional software.

Even the best Fusion 360 designers sometimes end up with errors and warnings in their designs. Those errors and warnings are there for a reason. The purpose of this class is to help you fix your Fusion 360 design when it breaks, and learn how to prevent those errors from occurring in the first place. We'll explore the tools and techniques that are available in Fusion 360 to help you repair a wide variety of fusion errors and warnings that can happen when working with a Fusion 360 design. We'll expose you to enough of the internals of Fusion 360 so that you can understand the root cause of these errors. We believe this understanding will help you both to fix the errors when they happen and also how to design/edit in such a way that you avoid ever seeing the errors in the first place. This class will only cover the Design workspace and tools; it will not cover CAM/manufacture, simulation, or drawings.

Take a look into the future of additive manufacturing. Find out about how design and manufacturing challenges are changing as additive manufacturing becomes more accessible.

Many designers require model simplification as a method for managing large assemblies, incorporating placeholder geometry into an assembly, or simplifying proprietary data that is going to an external vendor. In this class you will learn about the simplification tools that are available for use in Inventor software. We will discuss Shrinkwrap, Derive, and model simplification tools, and we will also cover Design View and Level of Detail representations.

Subdivision bodies are a type of geometry in Alias software that provides smooth continuous surfaces for the creation of objects and organic shapes. Alias subdivision bodies are compatible with standard Catmull-Clark subdivision surfaces, which makes them like subdivision surfaces in other content creation applications such as Maya software and 3ds Max software. However, Alias subdivision bodies are a collection of continuous NURBS surface patches, so they also inherit characteristics from Alias surfaces. This means that Alias subdivision bodies include the strengths of Alias NURBS surfaces and traditional subdivision surfaces. This class will cover the new subdivision tools and integrated workflows in Alias.

The Fusion 360 platform is an extremely powerful tool for design and manufacturing, and with the inclusion of an easy-to-use API, it can become even more powerful to automate user workflows. This class will cover a basic overview of the Fusion 360 API and how to get started. We will introduce students to a simplified method of creating and distributing Fusion 360 scripts and add-ins. Focusing on actual customer problems and sample applications, students will learn how to quickly write simple python scripts to automate tasks and create useful utilities and workflow enhancements.

This class covers the use of the Lip, Boss, and Grill commands inside of Inventor software. We'll discuss real-world examples of how to create lips, bosses, and grills in Inventor software. We'll also take a look at the Split command, and we'll show how to use multiple solid bodies within a part, including how to control their visibility and material. Prior part-creation and sketch-creation knowledge will be useful.

Simulation technologies are very powerful, but for purchased fasteners or machine components that use standard gear tooth profiles, bearings, chains, or springs simulation aren’t the most efficient solutions. The answers to selecting those types of components have been cataloged for decades in handbooks and reference materials. In this course, we’ll get hands on to try out several of the Design Accelerators in Inventor that use time-tested performance standards to size and select components. These tools can also shorten the design process by creating multiple features at once even through multiple components in an assembly. If you design machinery, you need to be aware of these tools.

This class will be an introduction or reintroduction to Inventor mechanical design and 3D CAD software. It will also go into general detail about many of the common issues that come up on the Inventor forums. It is generally understood that there are more intermediate and advanced Inventor software classes at Autodesk University; however, sometimes you need to go back to the basics to discover or rediscover some of the features you might not know about or understand—whether they be hard to find, or confusing to know how to use. This session will feature Inventor Professional software.

This class will be an introduction or reintroduction to Inventor software. It will also go into general detail about a lot of the common issues that come up on the Inventor Forum. It is generally understood that there are many intermediate and advanced Inventor sessions at Autodesk University; however, sometimes you need to go back to the basics and introduce or reintroduce people to some of these features they might or might not know or understand—whether it’s how to find them, or how to use them. This session features Inventor Professional 2020—2017 software. (The handout will have some Inventor 2016 information)

Have you ever built a 3D parametric model with Inventor software that just EXPLODED? In this class, we will learn how to build reliable, predictable, parametric part models with confidence. We will learn a structured approach that can easily be documented as an office standard. We will learn how to order our feature tree and how to make features adapt without making the model fragile. Finally, we will learn how to document our design intent to make our models easy to “read” and work with. Don't waste any more time fixing bad models. Start with great models—and make them better!

During this roundtable discussion, we will discuss industry challenges, how Fusion Lifecycle software can help manage them, and how to overcome roadblocks when implementing processes in Fusion Lifecycle.