Computer-aided drafting is an essential skill for many engineers and architects. I have actually taken five drafting courses in my academic career (two hand-drafting, and three computer-based) in addition to practical architectural drafting and studio drawing courses. The most recent class focused on using SolidWorks; exploration of the program’s features culminated in a practical design project where my team selected a mechanical system, researched its parts and functions, and created a series of digital models and graphics to fully describe the system.
My team selected a mechanical music box; displayed here is the “comb” (the small multi-tine tuning fork that makes the musical notes when plucked). While this object might appear relatively simple, there were some challenges in getting the geometry exactly correct, and in the end it was a valuable exercise in generating 3D models.
Created using Solidworks