VRC YouTube Tutorials

After considering a few options, I decided to create a series of video tutorials covering both design concepts and CAD skills. During my summer break I created my introductory video series, which I required all of mentees to watch in order to gain a basic understanding in these areas. During the school year, I created more video series to further aid them in their learning. I made a total of 25 educational videos for VRC. Even after I stepped down as head mentor for the VRC program, my video series continue to be used to teach design and CAD.

In this design focused course I explained how the different types of drive bases, claws, arms, intakes, and shooters function. At the end, I had my mentees take a quiz I created to check understanding and reviewed anything with them that they did not seem to understand.

In this CAD skills course, I explained everything needed in going from never having touched CAD to completing a VEX drive base in Fusion 360 (currently the video on how to download Fusion 360 has become out of date, but everything else still is accurate). The course also briefly covers how gear ratios work, and how to identify and write them for VEX documentation. During the course I asked mentees to CAD the VEX drive base I demonstrated on their own Fusion 360 account and at the end to take a quiz about other CAD aspects. I reviewed and gave feedback to members about their CAD drive base and quiz results. 

In this design focused course, I explain some unique and not very often used mechanisms in ratchets and differentials. These mechanisms allow for more than one task to be achieved by a single motor, but are often hard to execute to their full potential. There was an optional quiz at the end for mentees to take, which I would only give feedback on when prompted.

In this CAD skills course, I cover how to CAD with more of the tools in Fusion 360. The introductory course teaches how to CAD with a plug-in that greatly simplifies the difficulty and number of steps needed to CAD with VEX parts. However, this plug-in has limitations and is not real CAD. Some things can not be dealt with effectively like efficiently creating chain links, custom plastic plates, or pneumatics. Extrusion is also the more typical way of cutting parts up instead of relying on a plug-in. Joints allow for a limited simulation of movement in Fusion 360. 

While the rest of my videos were great at increasing my mentee's knowledge for VEX design and CAD, those videos were meant to be reused for subsequent years, so they contained general information. I still called with each of the teams I mentored and gave advice specific to their designs. However, some questions became frequently asked. These videos do not give full solutions to their design inquires, but answer those questions.  

Effectively any educational video/series on the SAS Robotics YouTube channel I either created myself or oversaw the creation of. The remaining video tutorials mostly cover FRC content, but ended up not being as comprehensive as my VEX list, due to how much more complex FRC is.