Autodesk Account

We will be using two Autodesk products in this course: Tinkercad Circuits and Fusion 360. Tinkercad is a browser-based circuit and Arduino simulator which stores your designs online. Fusion 360 is an application program available for either Windows or macOS which you will need to install on your own machine. It also stores design files online. Both products require an Autodesk account; these are available free of charge to students and faculty.

If you do not already have an Autodesk account, you’ll need to create one as follows.

  1. Please visit https://www.autodesk.com/education/edu-software

  2. Click on GET STARTED

  3. Click on CREATE ACCOUNT

  4. Select country, role, institutional type, and your date of birth.

  5. Enter your name, email, and a password. The email address does not necessarily have to be academic, as it isn’t part of verifying student status.

  6. There will be an email verification step.

  7. There may be a educational status check.

Documentation on educational accounts:

  1. https://knowledge.autodesk.com/customer-service/account-management/education-program/create-education-account/create-account-students-educators

  2. https://damassets.autodesk.net/content/dam/autodesk/www/industries/education/docs/edu-verification-customer-faq.pdf

  3. https://verify.sheerid.com/autodesk-student-faq/

Autodesk Tinkercad

Tinkercad is a browser-based system for 3D CAD, circuit simulation, and learning Arduino programming, available for use with a free account. We will be using the circuits features for the introductory exercises in circuit-building and Arduino programming. Tinkercad includes both a 3D model editor and a circuit simulator; we will only be using the Circuits portion. No special software installation is required beyond a web browser.

Tinkercad login: https://www.tinkercad.com

Some useful keyboard shortcuts while editing circuits:

0-9

set wire color, order follows resistor color code

r

rotate part clockwise; shift-r for counterclockwise

s

start or stop simulation

z

zoom to view all

e

open or close code editor

c

view or hide parts picker

shift-drag

select multiple objects

shift-click

add to selection

Tinkercad Errata

The Fall 2020 problem: Tinkercad Circuits sketch sharing links which include the term ‘tenant=circuits’ appear consistently to return a 404 error instead of accessing the sketch. The first workaround appears to be to exit and reload the sketch at least once before generating the share link. Alternatively, an existing link can be fixed by editing out the tenant=circuits clause, e.g. delete the text ‘?tenant=circuits’.

Autodesk Fusion 360

Fusion 360 is a cloud-based 3D CAD software, including 3D modeling, rendering, CAM programming, structural simulation, and electronics design. For our purposes, Fusion 360 offers parametric design capabilities similar to SolidWorks. Autodesk has liberal free educational licensing for students and instructors, so it is available to you at no charge. The client software works on either macOS or Windows.

The ‘cloud-based’ element means both that it is continually updated using a ‘software as a service’ model, and that your files live by default in cloud storage. The main implication is that it should support remote team collaboration and design review. However, it also means that update and server problems can make it occasionally unreliable.

Academic licensing and installation: https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/students-teachers-educators

Teams

The ‘Fusion 360 Team’ is a model for sharing online storage of projects and models.

The Autodesk Fusion 360 implementation of team management is quite lacking and we should all view it as a cautionary tale of non-user-centric design. It has the following features and limitations:

  1. Each user can only create one team.

  2. Each user can belong to multiple teams.

  3. A team can have any number of projects.

  4. Most projects are assumed to be Closed or Secret for which team members are specifically granted access.

  5. It appears impossible to provide read-only download access.

Key Autodesk reference pages:

Fusion 360 Team Protocols

Following are my notes on the use of Teams within our course.

  1. For access to the course resources, I have added all the student Autodesk accounts as “Editor” to my “CKS Course Resources” project. This is apparently the only way to make sure you have download access in addition to viewing files on the web pages. Specifically:

    • students are added as ‘Project Contributor’ to the ‘Dr. Zeglin’ team

    • students are given the role of ‘Editor’ on the ‘CKS Course Resources’ project

    • as Editor, you can modify the template files, so please be careful not to change anything. If I find any extraneous folders or design files I will move them aside. If you find an error, though, please email me and we’ll coordinate on a fix.

  2. I used your Andrew email addresses to identify Autodesk accounts. If you use a different email address for your Autodesk account, I expect you’ll need to email me privately so I can add you under that identity.

  3. I have not identified any way to copy course resources directly into your own projects on your own ‘team’ space. I believe you’ll need to download and then reupload any templates you want to use.

    • With this in mind, I may prepare some collection files which contain multiple samples to download in one step. This is already true for a few folders.

  4. You should be able to reach the ‘Dr. Zeglin’ team in two ways:

  5. You’ll be creating your own projects in your own team space.

    • Please be sure to create a new empty project; using the default Autodesk-created projects has been problematic.

    • For submission, you’ll need to add garthz@cmu.edu as Project Contributor with Editor role on your project.

    • For solo work, you could do that once and keep all your work in folders in one project.

    • For collaborative work, one student will need to ‘own’ the project in their own ‘team’ space and invite their partner to the project.