Introduction

You poor, unfortunate soul, you've stumbled into the grim void that is CAD—a barren wasteland of creativity where ideas are shackled to an unforgiving grid. Every curve, every line, every dimension is a cold calculation, drained of life and stripped of humanity. Hours blur together as you drag your soul through endless revisions, watching inspiration crumble into monotony, one extrude command at a time.

Sounds scary right? That will be a reality to any CAD student who doesn't have one very important trait: Patience.

You see, designers live on the love-hate relationship between ourselves and our designs. It's not a simple as drawing a few lines and making a part. Here's an easy way to think about what designers do:

Imagine building an entire robot from scratch by yourself with no drawings. Everything you build is with your own imagination limited only to constraints set by team goals. Now, imagine building that robot from a screen equipped with a keyboard and mouse, oh and of course a couple of monsters on the side.

Every measurement, cutout on a piece, bearing, spacer, down to each individual screw and rivet, was planned by someone in CAD. You can now probably imagine why CAD is not for everyone.

CAD demands an ability to endure countless adjustments, troubleshoot inexplicable errors, and navigate through layers of complexity without losing focus. It's a slow grind where precision outweighs speed, and the smallest mistake can unravel hours of meticulous work.

Patience turns frustration into perseverance and keeps the process moving forward.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that as you go through these docs for CAD, keep in mind that every time you fail, every constrain or extrude error you may come across—it's all part of the natural process of learning CAD. Even with the experience that I've had (4 years of CAD now), I still encounter errors that can really put someone down. It's the ability to overcome every issue, no matter how annoying, that makes someone successful at CAD. So as you tackle errors that may come your way on your CAD journey, remember that every error you overcome is a building block of your success, shaping you into a more skilled and resilient designer.

And with that yap session out of the way, Here's the breakdown of the CAD subgroup:

This is the list of practical applications for CAD. Everything starts with learning the basics with Onshape and then moving onto any of the 3 (or all 3) side hobbies that CAD does. Listed is every goal that you need to be able to do to master that specific category.

We also have the design aspect of CAD. This is all the actual design skills that are necessary to be able to design things. In my opinion mastering the design aspect of CAD ensures that you don't end up wasting so much time iterating through designs. However, learning many of these design principles can't be taught. It comes with experience. Please keep in mind:

CAD is merely a tool. The art of designing things goes far beyond mastering softwares

As you go through these docs my hope is to at least try to pass on some of my experience so you don't repeat the same mistakes I have (Trust me, I didn't waste half the teams budget for nothing). With every lesson there should be a linked video (hopefully) that covers how I personally tackle that specific topic myself. So for those who don't like reading, you have yourself a second option! (I know im such a nice guy right?).

Anyways, I wish you the best of luck on your CAD journey! - Sukhesh