Inventor is a CAD software where you can design and dimension different objects by sketching them and making them come to life. You are able to create objects by sketching out objects and using dimensions to make them the right size them by extruding them they become 3d and are almost ready to be printed. After they become 3d you are able to use the cut tool to make the object look correct. Overall inventor is a cool and interesting program to learn and experiment with.
The Widget I 3D Printed
In step one I sketched and then extruded the bottom and the middle of the bottom by dimensioning and extruding them. In step 2 I sketched a rectangle and extruded and dimensioned to cut off the excess materials. When I took my widget to MakerBot I kept the original dimensions and added a decimal point to the right one because it would be to small. After that I uploaded it to my usb drive and put it into the 3D printer and waited until my raft was done printing. After that the print worked and here is the finished product.
In summary I learned that using inventor can be difficult and tricky if you dont know what you are doing but getting caught up and asking for help can really be a game changer. Something i learned from the unit is to pay close attention to every detail because it can be crucial information. I learned that when 3d printing objects making sure you dimensions are correct is also very important because if they are not you might have to redo things multiple times which can set you back.