A Crash Course in DesignSpark Tools

I have just finished the 3rd year of my 4 year MEng Mechanical Engineering degree at the University of Sussex and have recently started a 10 week internship with RS components. The first task after meeting the team was to attend a Designspark workshop to get up to speed with the Designspark software tools, including DesignSpark Mechanical and DesignSpark PCB. Last week I made my way into London to attend the Fab Lab situated there. The event was organised by my colleagues from RS Components (RS), Mitch Da Silva, RS University Manager, and Pete Wood, DesignSpark Community Manager. There were two trainers who developed the tutorial and helped the group throughout the day: Al was the instructor for DS PCB; and Emilio for DS Mechanical. 

Al and Emilio have worked with RS before and have been responsible for delivering tutorials on DesignSpark tools at previous workshops. The previous event was held at the University of Hertfordshire where it successfully taught students the power of DesignSpark. The tools are now installed on the majority of the computers on campus which is a great step forward for RS University in their journey to get around all the Universities in the UK. A partnership including an RS campus shop with the University of Hertfordshire is in the process of being finalised where students can go to obtain their required tools and components. As an engineering student myself, I can safely say I’m very jealous of this addition to their campus as it won’t be necessary for them to run into town or wait a few days for delivery anymore.

Fab Lab stands for Fabrication Laboratory. A fully-kitted workshop giving you the power to turn ideas and concepts into reality at an affordable price. It’s a perfect place for start-up companies that don’t have the required equipment needed to create modern day prototypes. That’s not the only audience it’s aimed at though, it’s a great place to work on projects as a group while gaining technical training along the way. Fab Labs can also help your business branch out into new fields quickly and cheaply or even aid with development and research of new ideas.

DesignSpark PCB

The training started promptly at 10 O’clock, with about 20 people from different backgrounds. There were a few engineers, a couple of students studying engineering, designing, computing, a couple of teachers and even a 16 year old girl, who was on a placement and wanted to become an engineer. DesignSpark PCB was the first of the two tools to be taught; being a mechanical engineer it didn’t come very easy to me. This wasn’t a problem though because the instructions were all very clear and the training went at a good pace to make sure everyone kept up and could go through it as a group. If you were really stuck, the trainers were more than happy to help with your problems and queries.

First of all, we were taught how to create our own components from scratch, as well as how to obtain and insert one from the thousands of components that are in the library. The next lesson we learned how to make a circuit board then how to add the correct components, which was fortunately very straight forward. Once all the components were in place, the next step was to create the joining tracks; this was extremely simplistic as it was done for you and shrunk the area of the board in half. Finally, we were taught how to upload our complete circuit board onto DesignSpark and then to get quotes from companies that create the actual board, which again was very straightforward.

DesignSpark Mechanical

Once this was completed, it was time for lunch which was supplied very kindly by RS. After many different types of sandwiches and crisps were consumed it was time to begin the afternoon session where we were taught about DesignSpark Mechanical. This was the part I was looking forward to most because it’s right up my street due to previous experience using CAD programs. The majority of people in the room had little or no CAD experience so the afternoon started slowly; I was even helping out others when I could. Although once the basics were grasped everyone got the hang of it. Afterwards we learnt how to create an enclosure for a makeshift PCB, which was very good practice as this is what the program is designed for. Once this was completed we added an inserted PCB, which was a slightly different size to the previous one. From there they showed us how easy it was to alter our design to accommodate the new board as well as combining it with the enclosure to allow components protruding through.

Conclusion

I thoroughly enjoyed the day at the Fab Lab in London and believe that I have gained a new set of skills which will definitely help me in the near future. For my final year MEng group project I will be designing a three stage rocket which will need a custom PCB to control and contain all the required components and I believe DesignSpark PCB will do the job perfectly. DesignSpark Mechanical is great for designing and altering created products quickly and efficiently, therefore wasting no time with stupid error messages. Also DesignSpark Mechanical can easily export your product as an STL file, which allows for 3D printing after running it through a slicer program. All in all it was a very beneficial workshop and I would recommend it to all students, graduates and engineers of every background.

Keep an eye out for the next event to expand your skills!!

Find out more about DesignSpark Tools

• DesignSpark Mechanical
• DesignSpark PCB