Embedded Files
Foundation
Foundation
Onshape is a free online platform for CAD (computer-aided design). The basic tools and operations are taught during class in the Reverse Engineering Project. The operations include zoom, pan, orbit, and use the viewing cube. The tools practiced include sketch, extrude, loft, sweep, revolve, mirror, chamfer, and fillet. Using the tools and operations above, students are required to take apart an object and recreating it in Onshape with precise measurements and to put up a report for it.
Plan
Plan
My purpose of this Senior Research Project is to practice CAD and explore more tools in Onshape. There are 71 tools in Onshape, not including those of Sketches, and we only touched upon 7 of them, excluding sketch, and were all the most basic tools.
The Tools underlined are the ones learned in class.
This Trophy I made requires 3d fit spline to create curve as guide for loft to be properly generated.
Though what we learned in the class is sufficient for simple objects that are composite of simple shapes (rectangles, cubes, circles), they often hit their limit when dealing with any object that involves curvatures. Many of these tools needs to be used in conjunction with other more advanced tools to produce the ideal output, for example loft often needs 3d curves to provide guide for it to produce proper shape. And many of these tools itself have more advanced options, such as partial filleting for the fillet tool.
The approach is to first practice and get used to CADing in Onshape by watching workflow videos and recreating the work of others. I will explore and try out unfamiliar tools in this process, and reaffirming the skills I had already learn. Then after sufficient practice, I'm going to design a product of my own. The first target is to recreate trophies on a competition in Printables, and then create a trophy for VEX High Stakes. Then the next competition I participated in is the bioreactor competition for deep space food production. Then the last competition I participated in is the injection molding future furniture tournament.
Trophies (2024 Nov. 5 - 2025 Jan. 17)
Trophies (2024 Nov. 5 - 2025 Jan. 17)
Printable is a community website for 3D printable model file sharing, product selling, contests, and skill communication. When I started this program, Printable is holding a contest for 3D-printable trophies. I lacked inspirations and wants to have more practice to reaffirm the tools taught in the class as well as discovering new tools, so I decided to first recreate other entries. Then I made a trophy that gains inspiration from the Vex High Stakes robotics competition. I incorporated the elements of the ring, the stakes, and the base of the mobile goals to form the trophy.
Trophy Products
Trophy Products
The links are to stl files, cannot be viewed directly.
Trophy 1 Recreation
Trophy 1 Recreation
Reaffirms skills taught in class. Learned circular pattern, line angle plane.
Trophy 2 Recreation
Trophy 2 Recreation
Learned thicken, shell, 3 point plane.
Vex High Stake
Vex High Stake
Learned bridging curves, 3D fit splines, guided loft.
Bioreactor (2025 Jan. 17 - 2025 March 7)
Bioreactor (2025 Jan. 17 - 2025 March 7)
The next contest I attend is the GRABCAD Bioreactor contest for a bioreactor designed for deep space food production. The criteria and limitations are more defined for this contest. The design must be easy to clean, contain no sharp edges, and leak proof. It can only have a volume from 30-100mL, capable of gas exchange, allows for media introduction, and must works in microgravity. The material must be able to withstand a pH of 4-8 and a temperature of 4-82°C. It also must be food safe, reusable or recyclable.
Due to the design requirement and the lack of inspiration, the bioreactor I designed was very simple in structural design and most of the time was instead put into the selection of the material. 60% of time was spend on researching while only 30% of the time was in real CADing, and the rest 10% to put up a description for the bioreactor.
At the end, I came up with using polypropylene for the container due to its excellent chemical resistance and recyclability. A PDMS semi-permeable membrane was used for gas exchange due to its high permeability and ease of fabrication, and a Luer lock was used for media introduction. Research was done on Luer lock to understand the types of Luer lock (female & male) and the mechanism of Luer lock syringe to ensure leak proof function of the bioreactor.
Furniture (2025 March 7 - 2025 April 28)
Furniture (2025 March 7 - 2025 April 28)
This contest is based on injection molding instead of 3D printing, and more specifically, a two-part mold. This makes it important to take undercut under consideration to make mold release possible. The contest is to design for an aesthetic, modern, and minimalistic furniture.
I first decided to go with a chair and then did some research of the existing minimalistic and modern chair designs, as well as the typical dimensions of chairs. I noticed few characteristics of minimalist design: clarity, simple geometry, neutral color, and functionality. I noticed that many of the existing designs are too simple, such that I don't feel it challenging enough, which contradicts my purpose for this Senior Research Project. So I decide to give up with simplicity but keep the geometric property and neutral color and functionality (never really test out).
Also, in order to avoid undercut and to make it convenient for shipping and packaging, the chair must be taken down into parts and made necessary for easy assembly requiring as least tools as possible. So, I also made some research on joineries, including box, dovetail, dowel, mortise and tendon. The ones I used the most for this chair are dovetail and mortise & tendon. I CAD the overall shape first, then breaking it down into parts, then added the joineries, and at last add the tolerance. Sometimes, adding joinery itself will create undercut, causing a part to be then split up again, making the process kind of cumbersome.
Overall thoughts
Overall thoughts
Throughout this project, I feel I had learn a cool and useful skill of CADing. I definitely have a more clear view of CAD workflow, and understood how it involves a lot of research beforehand and putting up documents afterward. The time that was really spend on CAD varies a lot depending on the complicity of the subject. For example, it's easy for me to just look into some existing furniture designs and start on some furniture, but much more research is required for deep space bioreactor before I start.
I found it kind of frustrating when I move deep into a design but have to change something done early, for it usually creates tens of error such as planes missing selected features or sketches missing external references. Plus, I'm not good at sketching so I usually don't have things layout before I start, so sometimes it becomes an issue. What I've learned in this project in return helped me in my Engineering course. The most recent prosthetic project took me over 450 features to CAD, and I don't think it's possible for me make something as complicated as the one I had right now without participating in this Senior Research Project.
Yet I knew that there was still a lot of advanced tools on Onshape that I never get to use, as well as all sorts of extensions of which I had only tried out one of them. In the future, I was thinking about looking into some more tutorials in Onshape. Also, I encountered some circumstances where it's better to have my 3D model rendered, which I haven't figure out a way to do it in Onshape, so I was planning on learning Blender in the future for rendering and some 3d modeling that does not involve precise measurements.
Reflection
Reflection
Below is an interview between Zhi and Dr. Nguyen, reflecting on what he learned from this project.
WIN_20250520_12_54_06_Pro.mp4Page updated
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