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Welcome to FIRSTbase

Autodesk FIRSTbase is the Autodesk source for FIRST Robotics Competition teams. This website is your destination to download free Autodesk software, access online training designed with you in mind, utilize the kit of parts modeled in Autodesk Inventor to save you crucial days of development, receive product technical support free of charge, view hundreds of Autodesk Design Competition entries and all of the winners, and utilize your team's own collaborative workspace, including file sharing, team discussion, photo sharing, team to-do lists, team news, video sharing, email capabilities and team member information. Register today, check out all of the great content, and keep coming back!

2008 Autodesk Inventor Award Winner

Cyber Blue (Team 234)
Indianapolis, IN

The Cyber Blue design team worked long hours this year to produce a quality submission for the Autodesk Inventor Award. The team is lead by Ben Martin, who is completing his fourth year as a member of Cyber Blue. Second year members include Miranda Goelz, Matt Marchione, and James Roach. Joining the team this year is Ben Petry. The website was created by second-year member Brandon Walsh. At the beginning of the year, the team decided to concentrate on its submission for the Inventor Award; however, the design team had no mentors who were familiar with the Inventor program. Thus, this year, the award is entirely student-produced. The Cyber Blue design team hopes you enjoy learning about our robot.

2008 Autodesk Visualization Award Winner

Absolute Value (Team 867)
Arcadia, CA

Absolute Value has been involved with FIRST robotics since our rookie year in the spring of 2002. While always being supported by both our school district (Arcadia Unified School District / superintendant Dr. Mimi Hennessy) and the Los Angeles Regional Occupation Program (ROP), our first two years were sponsored by NASA. The last five years of FIRST entry fees have been covered by AUSD, and ROP has provided for the two daytime Intro to Robotics classes with Mr. Bill Chapman and the weekly evening Advanced Robotics class with Richard Fretz. In the fall, the Advanced Robotics class participates in the annual JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) Invention Challenge. The class splits up into 3 or 4 teams and learns practices that they apply to the FIRST challenge in the spring (design cycle etc.). This year, for the first time, one of our teams, led by Han Lin, also the leader of this year's animation team, built a Boe-bot controlled musical instrument that took first place at the JPL competition.
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Here is some additional information about the animation from Han:

Well, the first idea that came to my mind was solar panel because it provides free energy. But I know that most of my competitors will use the same common idea or imagine a better one, so I spend the majority of my time thinking about how to use solar energy in the most efficient way. Rather than imagining something else innovative, I believed that the highest chance to get into the finals is to make our animation stand out from the rest in using the most common idea.

So, I did some research on solar panels about how they function and how they conserve energy. I actually bought a solar panel to see how it really works. Then I listed the occasions when we need energy the most but couldn't get them. Then, integrate the use of solar panels into these sorts of situations in the most efficient, easiest ways, and that was how I came out with idea of solar canvas.

Learning the software:

I attended Montecito Fine Arts College of Design for about 1 to 2 years, so I have experiences in the field of 3D modeling, animation, and rendering. Frankly, I was one of the youngest students taking 3D studio courses in that college, and my skills was above class average, so I felt I was ready to take on the challenge of the Autodesk Visualization Competition. However, 3Ds Max was not the software I used in that college, so I have learn 3Ds Max from scratch by myself. But already having experiences in Montecito, learning this software was not difficult. In order to produce an animation that stands out, basic tutorials were not sufficient. I went to sites like youtube.com or google.com to search for advanced or intermediate tutorials. Learning these tutorials was one of the hardest steps because they always use different versions of 3Ds Max. And numerous times, my computer was infected with viruses and pop-up ads from searching for these tutorials.

Teamwork (Credit):

  • My mentor, Mr. Fretz, helped me the most. If he had not informed me about this competition, I would not have entered or even know this had existed. Also, he gave me suggestions correct the animation and the storyboard.
  • Kanon Shiu, Shaun Liyange, and Albert Lo had helped me pick the background music for the video. However, due to the short time we had, we were not able to obtain consent from the author of the music.
  • Michael Wu, Jonathan Chien., and Bob Zou had helped me on constructing the base for the idea.
  • Peter Krogen and Tim Wong guided me through the first few steps of how to use the software.
  • Peter Bai (Linhan Bai), although he wasn't in the robotics class, he helped me put the animation together and made it into a video. The voice in the animation was also his voice.

Entering the Adv. Robotics Class was probably the best choice I've made in my whole school life.

Autodesk Software and Training Still Available This Season

Has your team taken advantage of all of your Autodesk software licenses for this 2008 FRC season?  You still have time to download Autodesk Inventor Professional 2008, Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 and Autodesk Combustion free of charge.  Licenses are good for one year from date of registration.   Learn more.  Then use this summer to get up to speed on the software by utilizing the many online training tutorials.  Learn more. 

2008 Autodesk Design Competition Entries/Winners

Autodesk received hundreds of submissions to this year's design competitions. Teams created digital designs of their robots in Autodesk Inventor to save their team time and materials to complete their build. Teams were also challenged to create an animation using Autodesk 3ds Max with the theme "Designing an Invention for Your Community." To view all of the impressive entries, finalists and winners, click on the links below:

Team 869 Team 100 Team 2274