Newbie to inventor and FIRST, got info?

[tedg]

Hey everyone, Ive been in AutoCAD for over 12 years now doing mostly 2D & a little 3D, and have dabbled in 3D Studio Max, VizRender, and Accurender. I may be needing some help with Inventor.

My son recently joined his highschool's robotics team, which asks parents to mentor and volenteer to help if they can. The team builds a competition robot every year. More information about FIRST. They're hoping I can help the team to use Inventor, and I would love the opportunity. They have a person or two that works with the program, but I don't know how much training and experience they have.

They use Inventor to design the robot, and FIRST actually gets a "kit of parts" from Autodesk every year to start with, they would be "required parts" based on that years' competition.
We actually got this sent to the team via email.

From what I understand, the design itself (done in inventor) can win awards from Autodesk, as well as an animation done in 3DS Max!

Does anyone have any experience on any of this they can share?
Any tips, tutorials, tricks etc they can share to get me more up to speed on Inventor to help train the team?

Thanks in advance.

[mflayler]

Well we have our monthly Intro to Inventor webcast coming up on the 19th if you are interested. It is free and lasts about a hour and a half. This is good if you have never seen Inventor before. We also have a monthly Tips and Tricks Webinar too.

Click to my blog and then click the Events link to sign up. And its free btw.

I should also mention that we have sponsor FIRST robotic teams in the past with free training, but it will depend on your location and some other factors.

[JD Mather]

You might go through these documents (slight but important differences, sorry for earlier releases but most is the same)
http://home.pct.edu/~jmather/AU2006/MA13-3%20Mather.pdf
http://home.pct.edu/~jmather/AU2007/...L%20Mather.pdf

Students can download Inventor 2010 for free from http://engineersrule.org as well as a curriculum.

[jonathan.landeros]

You're already in the right place! AUGI is a great place to ask questions!

There are also some other good places like
www.sdotson.com (free tutorials).
www.cbliss.com (free parts that can be used in design, or for reverse engineering of models).

Some of the info on the sites is a little dated, but the core info is still solid.

You can also find some good data on youtube, although it can be a little hit or miss based on what you find.

Good luck, I worked with First a little bit in So Cal. It's amazing the level of ingenuity you see there!

[tedg]

Thanks everyone for the replies.
When I get a minute I'll persue your suggestions.