Summer is halfway over and we roll into July this weekend. Design keeps on steadily progressing with new ideas being modeled as they come about. The dynamic simulation environment in Autodesk Inventor 2008 is downright awesome.

Granted, it is a taxing endevour on my laptop, but once the processing is complete you are able to watch a realtime simulation of your product and how it will work. This is extremely useful for the suspension and steering sub-assemblies of our design. With all the parts and pieces assembled in the simulator we add real forces like gravity, frame loads, tire pressure, spring constants, and suspension dampening. With the loads properly situated we can add limits on rotation and weld the proper pieces together.

Although our computer model is still in progress, eventually we will be able to have the Briggs power our transmission thus sending power to the wheels, all in the computer. Our vehicle will move in real time under its own 10hp in the simulator before we even notch a peice of tubing. Through simulation testing we will be able to break the vehicle without spending the time and money on actual parts. The vehicle will undergo tumbles, flips, rolls, head-on impacts, skids, sharp turns, and all the external forces and data will be neatly exported onto graphs for reference. I am impressed with the usability of Inventor 2008 and how well it works on an average computer. The knowledge and data acquired through modeling, stress-testing, and simulations will put our team one step ahead on the building phase. The era of cut-and-fit fabrication and "does that look good to you" assembly is toast... YEAH TOAST!

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