💻 CAD · Beginner · Onshape for VRC

Onshape Setup
for Spartan Design

Before you design anything, you need a working Onshape environment. This guide covers everything from account setup to finding VEX parts — so your first session is building, not troubleshooting.

▶ Onshape in Spartan Design

Onshape is our primary design platform — the tool Spartan Design uses to plan, communicate, and build better robots. Before any metal gets cut, the design exists in Onshape. That means fewer rebuilds, better teamwork, and a notebook full of engineering evidence that judges can actually follow.

🚗 Design

Drivetrains, mechanisms, and full robot layouts — modeled in 3D before a single screw is turned.

🗣 Communicate

Shared across squad members and mentors in real time — everyone sees the same model, no guessing.

🎓 Train

Rookies and Shadows learn how robot systems fit together by seeing them in CAD — before touching hardware.

🔧 Build Accurately

Correct shaft lengths, verified clearances, and right-first-time part cuts — CAD eliminates the guesswork.

The Spartan Design CAD workflow

Design in Onshape → Build from CAD → Test & Measure → Improve in CAD → Next Prototype

Account

Documents

Interface

VEX Library

Checklist

// Section 01

Accessing Your Onshape Account

Your school uses a DUSD Enterprise Onshape account — no sign-up required. Your account already exists. Log in at dusd.onshape.com using your school credentials and you are in.

💡

Your DUSD enterprise account is already private. All documents created in the team workspace are private to your district account. Do not create a separate personal Onshape account for team work — use dusd.onshape.com. Personal accounts default to public and would expose your robot designs to competing teams.

Step-by-Step: Getting Into Your Account

Go to dusd.onshape.com

Your school uses the DUSD Enterprise Onshape account. There is no sign-up — your account already exists. Go to dusd.onshape.com and log in using your school Google or district credentials (the same login you use for your Chromebook or school apps).

No personal email needed. Do not create a separate personal Onshape account. Your district account is already set to private and enterprise-tier. Everything your team builds lives here.

Confirm you can see the team workspace

After logging in, you should see the Spartan Design team folder or a document your mentor has shared. If you see “My Documents” but no team documents, you have not been added to the team yet — ask your mentor to share the team folder with your school account.

If you see nothing: Go to “Shared with me” in the left sidebar. The team documents may be there. If still nothing, message your mentor — they need to share the folder to your school email.

Set Chrome as your default browser

Onshape runs best in Chrome. Firefox and Edge work but have occasional rendering issues. If you are on a school Chromebook, Chrome is already set. If using a personal laptop, make sure Chrome is up to date.

Hardware note: If your laptop struggles — rotating assemblies feels laggy, zooming hesitates — see the Laptop Guide for GPU and RAM requirements. Chromebooks with 4GB RAM may have trouble with large assemblies.

Test camera controls before your first build session

Open any document in the team workspace and practice: right-click + drag to orbit, scroll wheel to zoom, middle-click + drag to pan. These three controls are everything. If you cannot orbit a part smoothly, resolve that before the session starts — it will slow down the whole team.

Bookmark dusd.onshape.com now

Add it to your browser bookmarks bar. Every CAD session starts here. You should be logged in and on the team document within 30 seconds of sitting down — not spending 5 minutes remembering the URL.

✅

Before your first session, confirm: You can log in at dusd.onshape.com, you can see the shared team document in the workspace, and you can orbit a 3D model using right-click + drag.

Your school uses dusd.onshape.com. A teammate says “I’ll just make my own free Onshape account and share files from there.” What is the problem with this?

Free accounts cannot open VEX part libraries

Free personal accounts make documents public by default — your robot designs would be visible to every competing team on the internet. The DUSD enterprise account keeps everything private.

Free accounts have a file size limit that VEX assemblies exceed

There is no problem — either account type works the same

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// Section 02

Team Document Structure

How you organize your Onshape documents determines how fast you find things and how cleanly you can hand off work between team members. Get this right from day one.

How Onshape Documents Work

An Onshape document is like a project folder. Inside each document you can have multiple Part Studios (where you create individual parts) and multiple Assemblies (where you put parts together and add motion). Think of a document as one complete robot design — everything for that design lives in one place.

In your DUSD enterprise account, your team’s documents live in a shared workspace folder. Your mentor creates the top-level team folder. You create documents inside it. Never create robot design documents in “My Documents” — only your account can see those. Put everything in the shared team workspace so the whole team has access.

📝

Part Studio vs Assembly — the one-line version: Part Studio is where you make parts. Assembly is where you combine parts and check if they fit together. You will use both constantly.

Spartan Design Folder Structure

Your mentor sets up the top-level team folder in the DUSD workspace. Your job is to create documents inside it using this structure. Consistent naming means anyone on the team can find anything in under 10 seconds.

📁 Spartan Design 2025–26
📂 Season Robot
📄 v1 — Drivetrain Concept
📄 v2 — Intake Added
📄 v3 — Competition Build
📂 Mechanism Concepts
📄 Intake — 3-Ring Concept
📄 Intake — Wide Roller Concept
📂 Reference Parts
📄 Custom Plates
📄 Custom Gussets
📂 Notebook Evidence
📄 Screenshots — labeled for EDP entries

Naming Convention — Use These Exactly

Everyone on the team must follow the same naming rules. Inconsistent names slow down collaboration and make notebook documentation harder.

What You’re Naming	Format	Example
Document	[Robot Version] — [Year]	Competition Build v3 — 2026
Part Studio	[Subsystem] — [Version]	Drivetrain — v1
Assembly	[Subsystem or Full Robot] — Assembly	Full Robot Assembly
Custom Part	[Function] — [Material] — [Thickness]	Motor Mount — Poly — 1⁄4in
Version (version control)	v[number]: [what changed]	v4: Added intake gusset, moved battery

💾

Version control in Onshape: Use the “Create version” button (clock icon) before making any major change. It takes 5 seconds and means you can always roll back. This is the CAD equivalent of a git commit.

You are about to redesign the intake mechanism. Before you start modifying the assembly, what should you do?

Duplicate the entire document first, then make changes in the copy

Create a named version in Onshape before making any changes — this preserves the current state so you can roll back if the new design is worse

Start editing immediately — Onshape automatically saves history

Export the current assembly as a STEP file as a backup

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// Section 03

Learning the Interface

The three things you must master before you can design anything: camera controls, the feature tree, and the difference between Part Studio and Assembly mode.

Camera Controls — Memorize These

You will use these hundreds of times per session. Muscle memory is the goal — looking up how to rotate should never slow you down.

ORBIT

🖰

Right-click + drag

Rotate around the model. This is your most-used control.

PAN

👉

Middle-click + drag

Move the view without rotating. Use to center work in view.

ZOOM

🔍

Scroll wheel

Zoom into wherever your cursor is pointing.

FIT ALL

⛶️

Press F

Fit the entire model in view. Use when you get lost or zoomed too far.

FRONT VIEW

■

Click the cube corner

The view cube (top-right) snaps you to any orthographic view. Click a face, edge, or corner.

SELECT ALL

✍️

Ctrl+A

Select everything in the current context. Ctrl+Z to undo any action.

The Feature Tree

The left panel in Onshape is the Feature Tree — a history of every step you took to create the model. In a Part Studio it shows sketches, extrudes, and operations in order. In an Assembly it shows every part and every mate.

⚠️

The most common beginner mistake: Editing features out of order. If you click into the middle of the feature tree and add something, every feature after it may break. Always work at the bottom of the feature tree unless you specifically need to edit an earlier step.

Part Studio vs Assembly — When to Use Each

🔧 Part Studio

› Creating a new custom part
› Sketching a gusset or plate
› Extruding, cutting, filleting
› One part at a time

🆕 Assembly

› Combining parts together
› Adding mates (constraints)
› Checking for interference
› The whole robot view

⚙ STEM HighlightParametric vs Direct Modeling

Onshape is a parametric CAD tool — every dimension is stored as a number that can be changed, and every subsequent feature updates automatically. This is different from drawing programs like Illustrator where you drag things by eye. When you change a shaft diameter from 0.375” to 0.25”, every bearing bore, every collar, every part that references that shaft can update in seconds. Industry CAD tools (SolidWorks, CATIA, Creo) all work the same way. Learning Onshape teaches the same mental model used by aerospace and automotive engineers.

🎤 Interview line: “We use parametric CAD to design the robot before we build it. When we change a dimension — say, we decide to use 4-inch wheels instead of 3.25-inch — every part that depends on that decision updates automatically. It’s the same workflow NASA engineers use.”

You want to see how your drivetrain’s gear train fits together and check for interference between parts. Which Onshape environment do you open?

Part Studio — all your parts are already there

Assembly — this is where you combine parts, add mates, and check how everything fits together

Either one works equally well for checking fit

Drawing — create a 2D drawing view to see dimensions

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// Section 04

The VEX Part Library

You do not draw VEX parts from scratch. Someone already modeled every legal VEX V5 component — motors, c-channels, wheels, gears, sensors, the V5 brain — with exact real-world dimensions. You insert them into your assemblies.

Finding and Inserting VEX Parts

Open your Assembly tab

Create a new Assembly inside your document (“+ → Assembly” at the bottom of the screen). Name it appropriately — e.g., “Drivetrain Assembly v1”.

Click the “Insert” button

The Insert panel opens on the right. This is where you find parts. Select “Browse documents” or use the search field.

Search for the VEX V5 Part Library

Search for “VEX V5RC Part Library” or “VRC Parts”. The official VEX Onshape library is maintained by the community and contains all current V5 legal parts. Your mentor should pin this to your team’s document for easy access.

Also useful: Search “Purdue SIGBots” — they maintain an excellent VRC-specific library with motor cartridges, bearing blocks, and common sub-assemblies pre-built. Using their library is not copying — it is working efficiently, the same way professional engineers use supplier CAD libraries. If dusd.onshape.com does not show public search results, ask your mentor to link the library document directly into the team workspace so everyone can insert from it.

Insert a part into the assembly

Click the part you want, then click in the viewport to place it. You can insert multiple instances of the same part — you will need 4 drive motors, 4 wheels, multiple c-channels, etc.

Add a Mate to constrain positions

Mates define how parts relate to each other. A Fasten mate locks a part in place. A Revolute mate lets a shaft spin inside a bearing. A Slider mate lets something move along a line. Start with Fasten mates — they are the simplest.

Key VEX Parts to Know

Part Name	What It Is	How You’ll Use It
1×× C-Channel	The main structural beam. 1×2, 1×3, 1×5, 1×15 etc. (holes in the flanges)	Drivetrain frame, arm structure, virtually everything structural
Bearing Flat	Thin flat bearing block that press-fits into a VEX hole	Wherever a shaft passes through a plate or c-channel
Shaft (3″, 4″, etc.)	Square ¼” shaft	Wheel axles, arm pivots, gear shafts
Spacer (0.5”, collar)	Small cylinder that keeps shafts from sliding laterally	Between the wheel and the c-channel on every drive shaft
V5 Smart Motor	11W brushless motor with integrated encoder	All 8 motor ports on your robot
Gear (36t, 60t, 84t…)	Standard spur gears with VEX hole pattern	Speed/torque conversion in drive and mechanisms
Omni Wheel (3.25”, 4”)	Wheel with rollers at 90° — no side resistance	Front/rear wheels on tank drive for smooth turning
Traction Wheel (3.25”)	Solid rubber traction — resists side sliding	Center wheels on 6-wheel drive for defense resistance

💡

VEX hole pattern: All VEX structural parts use a 0.5-inch hole grid. When you are positioning parts in Onshape, snap to this grid — every mate point should be on a half-inch increment. This is why VEX robots don’t require measurement during assembly — the geometry handles it.

You need 4 V5 Smart Motors for your drivetrain. In Onshape, how do you add them?

Create them from scratch in a Part Studio using the motor’s dimensions

Use the Insert tool in the Assembly to add them from the VEX V5 Part Library — then place 4 instances of the same motor part

Import a STEP file from the VEX website

You only need one motor in CAD — mirror it for the other side

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// Section 05

Onshape Setup Checklist

Complete every item before your first real CAD session. Check them off as you go — they save your progress.

✅ Setup Checklist

Can log in at dusd.onshape.com using school credentials

Use your district Google or school login — same as your Chromebook

Can see the team workspace or shared documents after login

If not visible, ask your mentor to share the team folder to your school email

Accepted the team document share from your mentor

You should see the Spartan Design document in your “Shared with me” folder

Can orbit a model using right-click + drag

Test this in the team document before your first session

Can zoom and pan with scroll wheel and middle-click

Muscle memory is the goal — practice for 2 minutes

Know where the Feature Tree is (left panel)

Open any document and identify it

Understand Part Studio vs Assembly difference

Part Studio = make parts. Assembly = combine parts.

Found the VEX V5RC Part Library in Insert panel

Search “VEX V5RC” — insert one motor into a test assembly

Created a version checkpoint in a test document

Click the clock icon → “Create version” → name it “Initial setup”

Set up team folder structure in your Onshape workspace

Season Robot / Mechanism Concepts / Reference Parts / Notebook Evidence

What’s Next

🚗

First Drivetrain in Onshape

Shaft planning, bearing placement, wheel spacing

⚙️

Mechanism Concept Sprint

Sketch before you build, tradeoff analysis

🔧

CAD to Build Handoff

BOM, screw plan, fabrication notes

💻

Laptop Setup Guide

Specs for Onshape + VS Code

5 / 5

Onshape Setupfor Spartan Design

Step-by-Step: Getting Into Your Account

How Onshape Documents Work

Spartan Design Folder Structure

Naming Convention — Use These Exactly

Camera Controls — Memorize These

The Feature Tree

Part Studio vs Assembly — When to Use Each

Finding and Inserting VEX Parts

Key VEX Parts to Know

What’s Next

Onshape Setup
for Spartan Design