PRODUCT FOCUS
Programming
by: Larry Daubenspeck
Backstop Backstory ➲A
nyone who has ever visited a gymnasium for any purpose other than a basketball game has probably noticed the backstops stored up and out of the way. It’s funny… when they are down in the playing position, one doesn’t even think about it. But fold them up into an unnatural position, and you can spot the few mechanical types in the crowd—staring up at the ceiling, tracing the cable from pulley to pulley, taking note of the bends and twists, and eventually finding the winch somewhere in the maze. The looks on their faces begin as uncertainty, but slowly give way to understanding. They have figured it out, and can now concentrate on other matters. Admit it—you know who you are!
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www.augi.com
Among other things, my company manufactures such backstops, which get bid on before and during the construction phase. At this point, I should back up and state for the record that we use Autodesk Inventor®. Part of the bid process requires submittal drawings, and the program I’d like to highlight in this article arose out of a need for a “tool,” or program, which would automate some rather monotonous tasks in Inventor. One such program is what we lovingly refer to as the Cable Routine. It allows the CAD designer to sit back and watch while it creates, on the fly, a new part (a cable) within the context of the backstop assembly. For the most part, once launched, the program runs by itself, pausing only to inform the user that it has finished. Only when a cable has to veer off June 2013