Bradley2a

The centering block drawing was the hardest one that I had to do in cad. I worked on making two angles that were opposite each other and had a crack or crevasse through he middle. I also worked on doing chamfers. I learned that it is a lot easier to make lines and cut a piece of the block out using that than it is to place a new block and subtract it from the drawing. That will help me in the future of the class because I can use that as much as possible and I wont have to mess around with any coordinates. This could be applied to the real world if you were designing a building and had to cut a certain piece out of it. Lets say your making a desk, you would probably have to cut a piece out of it where the persons feet go. I had a little bit of a problem cutting the two angles that are opposite each other and the crack. It was difficult because the crack doesn’t go in the same direction as the angled cuts. I solved it simply by doing the two parts separately. I thought I was pretty successful at cutting the angles at the top because because that was kind of hard and I wasn’t sure exactly how to do it at first. Again, the only way that I was creative here was in how I dimensioned the block. There were a couple tricky angles and sides that I had to dimension and it wasn’t that easy by I messed around with the views and was able to get it right.

Both of these were a little blurry on certain dimensions. On these specific drawings we learned hoe to use another tool that slices the block at a certain angle. The tool that we learned to use showed us that we can click three certain points on the object and it would cut the drawing to those specifications. This tool was a lot easier to use than what we were previously taught. This will help us in the future of the class because it is quicker and there are less steps but it does the same as what we knew before being taught this. This tool also was specific to where the cut was made. You didn’t just cut the angle at a certain degree, you had to place it. In the real world the angled pieces of everyday things aren’t just cut wherever so this tool could really help in the real world because it showed us how to specify the direction. On the 18b drawing when I cut the first side, it looked really weird and I thought that I did it wrong at first but then I realized that I just needed to cut the other side because looked like it extended to much. I think I was pretty successful at the way that I got through drawing 18a. There were a lot of tricky parts to that drawing and there was a guide to help but I did the steps in a different order and it worked really good. I don’t think I was very creative on these drawings because there wasn’t really a way to be creative. The only thing I can think of it how I rotated the drawing in order to dimension it correctly and I rotated it to use the parallel line tool to cut pieces out of the block.

This one above was kind of blurry by that angled dimension says 45º. This week I was mostly working on making angled cuts in the drawing. On the dovetail finger you can see that I cut a block in the top of the drawing and then I pushed the inside lines in so that they were at a 60º angle. I learned how to shave off a piece of the block at an angle but the way that I learned is a lot easier than what I knew before. This skill can help me on the harder drawings in the future of the class because its a lot quicker. It’ll help on the harder drawings because its quick and that way I can move on to the harder steps of that object. There are a lot of things in the world that have angles. Things like the roof of a house or a car windshield are all things that have angles so being able to cut an angle in to an object on the program is a useful skill. One of the problems that I ran in to was on the 17b drawing. I had to create and cut an angle that was the same on to different surfaces. One of the surfaces was angled but the cut needed to be that same so I had to put in reference lines to get the angle right. I thought I was successful by using what I have learned in the past to do what I was working on now. I knew how to make lines and then cut a piece from the block using those but a couple times I also made a block and subtracted it from the object if it looked easier. I guess I wasn’t really creative on these drawings but I did do something that the book didn’t tell me to do and it worked. I rotated the block a lot to do certain things and the way it was telling me to do it didn’t involve moving the block at all.

This week I was working on making cylinders in the drawing and I also learned how to drill holes in to the object. I learned multiple ways to make a curve and then drill a hole in ti the object to make it match up with the curved part of the drawing. I also learned that sometimes it is easier to start with a block and carve it or subtract things from it than it is to add pieces to a block. This could help in the future of the course because the book doesn’t always tell you things that you should already know. This will also help me to improvise with certain things. If they are teaching me something that does the same thing then I can have multiple options on how to get the task done. This type of skill could be applied to a real life situation if you were assigned to design some type of tunnel. In order to drill the hole you actually had to make a cylinder and then subtract it from the drawing. I had a bit of a problem placing the cylinder but then I found that it was easier to spin the drawing a certain way and use the center mid tool which made it easier to place the cylinder. I was successful in finding new ways to find measurements for certain parts of the object. Instead of making the block the full size of the object, I made it the size of the square part and then added the cylinder so I could unite everything. I think I was creative because I used the subtract tool by making a block and subtracting it from the drawing because it was not specific on how to do that.

This week we learned how to cut pieces or extract pieces from a block to make it so that it is not all square. We were also learning more about the viewports and how if you don’t do a certain thing in a specific viewport then it can do something bad to your drawing. The things that I have learned about the viewports will definitely help in the future of the course because we will be working in 3 or 4 different viewports all the time. There were a lot of problems in this part of the book, especially with the viewports. If you tried to do something but you did it in the wrong viewport then it wouldn’t show up in the right spot. I had a lot of trouble with this at first but it was ok after I remembered to always click the viewport I wanted before I clicked what I wanted to do. I was pretty successful with the viewports because I found different ways to do things by using the different viewports. I was also creative because of the way I did my dimensioning. It was tough to click certain lines because of the view but I tried using other views and other dimensioning tools and it helped a lot.

This week we have been working on rotating 3 dimensional objects around in order to make a complete drawing. We also worked on hollowing out objects like the bowl. The skills that I have learned can help me in this course because the drawings get a lot harder and if I end up having to do something like this again then I will know what to do if the book doesn’t tell me how to do it. There were a couple problems that I ran in to but there was one that was more challenging than ever. Sometimes if I didn’t connect the lines right then when I tried to hollow it out, it would cut out a piece of the side or it just wouldn’t work. It wasn’t easy to solve because it made it take longer but I re-did all the lines and it came out pretty good. I think I was successful at the ways that I had to improvise. Sometimes I had to do things a certain way that I learned earlier in the book and that helped me even on these harder drawings. I think I was kind of creative with the dimensioning. It was hard messing with the settings but I figured it out and I found new and easier ways to do certain things.



This week I worked on a couple of different things including harder dimensioning, doing different angles, and using the tool to make 3 dimensional objects. I have learned a lot about finding different angles and using reference lines in order find where certain lines should be in order to make the drawing. These skills can help me in this class because there are going to be a lot of tricky drawings in this class and if I know how find certain angles then that will make it a whole lot easier. I also got better at using the dimension settings so now I will be more successful with dimensioning in the future. One of my big problems was getting the lines to be the right length so that the dimensions would be right. I would do something a certain way and then realize that the dimensions were wrong. I fixed this by making reference lines and also getting the teacher’s help. I was successful in finding out how to start the drawing because at first I had no clue how I was going to even attempt this but I figured it out and then it got easier. I was creative because I found ways to dimension area’s that were tricky and I used different was then in the book in order to get certain angles. I used different reference points then the book said so that the angle looked right.

This week I was working with the rotation tool. On one of my drawings I placed one shape down and rotated the same shape around it to make a bunch of that same shape. With that tool we can also do one section of a round drawing and then rotate it around to make it whole. I learned that sometimes you have to mirror the shape once before you rotate it all the way around or the lines wont match up. This could help me in the future of this class because now it I have a round symmetric drawing then I wont have to do the whole this, I can just just use the shape rotation tool. In the real world if I was making something like a friction plat or a round piece then this would make it a lot easier. One of the problems I ran in to while doing this drawing was that I didn’t mirror over once before I did the rotation. When I did that, it rotated but none of the lines matched up right. I solved it by looking over the drawing and then I asked Mr. Bailey. The dimensioning was pretty tough as well because you had to go in to the dimension settings a lot. I was successful because now I know a lot about the dimension settings that I didn’t know before and now the shape rotation tool is pretty easy too. I was especially creative on the 90 degree angle in the friction plate drawing. It was hard to get that right but I was able to create a 90 degree line off of a reference line and then minus 6 from where I placed it and then use a parallel line tool to find the right measurement.

This week we were working a lot with the mirroring tool. We would do one quadrant of a symmetric drawing and then mirror it to do the other quadrants. I learned that instead of mirroring each quadrant in you can mirror it to make half the drawing and then mirror that half and get the other half of the drawing. This will help me in the future because now on a symmetric drawing I wont need to do the whole thing and it wont take as much time. If you are making a shelf or an object that is symmetrical then it will be really easy to use this tool for something in the real world. The dimensioning was getting more difficult because I needed to change the color and make sure that there weren’t and lines overlapping so that u couldn’t see the line at all. To solve the problem I just had to mess around with the dimension settings until I learned how to do certain things. I think I was successful because I was able to get really good with the mirroring tool when before I didn’t get how to do it. I was kind of creative this week in the way that I did the drawings. I thought of things that I did at the beginning of the year and that helped a lot.



This week I worked on doing angles and typing some coordinates. I also had to color code things which I wasn’t used to doing. I learned what angle I had to type in to make the curve go a certain way which will help in the future so I wont need to look back to find out. This might be helpful in the real world because it is an easier way to make a curve. I really didn’t run in to a problem. I just need to work on trimming circles and this week I just guessed and didn’t really know what I was doing. I did pretty well at messing around with the dimension settings in order to color code and stuff. I was pretty creative because instead of doing what that chapter said I did some stuff from what I remembered from previous chapters and it worked well.

This week I have been working on typing coordinates to make angles. We were also working on dimensions. I have now learned an easier way to find the angle of something and this would have been useful in the last drawing and should be useful in the future. Nothing it always going to be perfectly straight in the real world so knowing an easy way to show angles is good. One of the problems I had was if I screwed up I couldn’t seem to get back to the right point and starting over would take to long. I ended up finding an alternative way to get back to the right point on my own. To be successful I just didn’t give up and I found other ways to solve problems because the book didn’t explain. I had to mess around with the dimension settings a lot so that they would fit and I had to figure out how to fix problems.

This week I worked on doing dimensions and I did a lot with the mirror command. When I did the first quadrant I was able to copy it and make a circle. This mirror command could easily help me with harder drawings that are symmetrical. I won’t have to waste time on doing the same thing on a different side. These could be used in the real world if I ever did get a job in engineering or anything like that because I’m sure dimensioning is good. The mirroring tool was tricky because when I tried to click a certain line to put the second piece in it would go out of place. I was having trouble figuring out where to click but then I saw that there were different commands for clicking on vertical or horizontal lines. Something that might have made me successful was if I didn’t understand the book, then I looked around for other ways to do it and it worked. That could help me not rely on the book as much. The way I was creative was still basically how I would look for more than on e way to do something.

P. 7-56

This week we were working on a lot of different trimming techniques and on how two find midpoints and endpoints in order to get your design. I learned that instead of looking at one line at a time and trying to put it in there you should look at the big picture. You should try and see one whole line and then later trim it. This could show me a little about how to improvise with harder drawings in the real world. The only problem I had was getting the outside of the star to be the right angle. I was successful I finally figuring out how to get the star in there like it was supposed to be. At first for some reason I started trying to get the star there and then realized that it would be a lot easier to get the hexagon in there first.

P. 6-48 This week we were working with the mesh tool and the trim tool which were both a little tricky. I learned that to use the mesh tool you need to have a separate line for each time you use it. I could use this in the real world if I got a job in CAD design. The mesh tool was very difficult because we did not know that we needed to use separate lines but after we kept trying we figured it out. Well to be successful I kept trying and finally when I figured out how to do the drawing it was easier to do. Instead of doing it all at once I did one section at a time which seemed to work.

This was part of P. 5-40

This week I was working on trimming and typing coordinates. I have learned that the book tells you what you need to know but things are still tricky so that if you keep trying different things you can usually figure it out. I'm sure there are a couple ways that this could help me such as in math class when doing grids or graphs or help me see a little of what being an engineer is about. There were a couple things that were pretty hard such as trimming but after looking at the book again and talking to Bailey I got the hang of it. Something that I think I was successful at was simply not giving up as soon as I ran in to a problem helped because I did figure it out eventually. In some of the extra credit work I also had to improvise in order to do what I had to get done.