Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
ME 170: COMPUTER-AIDED DESIGN
CADLAB #4: PART MODIFICATIONS
OVERVIEW
In this lab, you will modify the parts you have created in previous labs using
various solid modeling and modify tools in Fusion. You’ll continue to model the
parts within a Tamagotchi by copying over individual part files, which you will
save in your ME 170 shared folder for grading. These components will be
assembled in a future lab to complete the full electronic device.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Learn how to modify existing parts to add features using solid modeling and modify tools.
2. Use tools like Shell, Rib, Hole, and Sweep to improve part functionality and manufacturability.
3. Applying mirroring and patterning techniques to efficiently replicate design geometries.
4. Create construction planes and projections to define sketch features on complex surfaces.
5. Explore advanced operations like lofting and offset faces to generate smooth transitions
between complex surfaces.
6. Understand how to edit and manage the design timeline to adjust and reorder features in
parametric models along with understanding the domino effect from features in a timeline.
LAB FILES
1. Display.f3d
2. Bottom_Half.3d
3. Top_Half.f3d
LAB TOOLS
1. Sketch Tools: Point, Rectangle, Line, Center-Diameter Circle, Linear Dimensions, Angular
Dimensions, Symmetric Constraint, Horizontal/Vertical Constraint, Concentric Constraint,
Project
2. Solid Modeling Tools: Extrude, Hole, Pattern, Mirror, Sweep, Loft, Rib
3. Modify Tools: Fillet, Chamfer, Shell, Offset Face
4. Other Tools: Construction Planes, Modify timeline, Section Analysis, Slice Tool
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
PART 1: GETTING STARTED
1. Create a new folder for CADLAB 4.
a. Navigate to the ME 170 Project you made by double clicking on the project.
b. In the top right of the Data Panel, select “New Folder.”
c. Enter “CADLAB 4” as the name for this folder, then double click to open. Note: You can
change the name of folders by right clicking on them and selecting the “Rename” option.
d. Once finished, you can click the Data Panel button again to close the Data Panel.
PART 2: MIRRORING FEATURES IN THE DISPLAY
2. Copy the display file over from Lab 2.
a. Open the CADLAB 2 folder in the data panel and right-click on the part named “Display.”
b. Select “Copy” from the list and when a pop-up appears ensure that the file location is ME
170 > CADLAB 4, and then select the “Copy” option.
3. Mirror the cut and chamfers in the display.
a. Select the Mirror tool from the “Create” dropdown. This tool repeats inputs across
a chosen plane.
b. In this case we will be mirroring features, so change the “Pattern Type” from Faces to
Features. Note: in some versions of Fusion, “Pattern Type” may be called “Object Type”.
c. For the Object, select the cut Extrusion and the Chamfer from the timeline as shown in
the image below.
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
d. For the Mirror Plane, select the YZ plane from the browser panel, change the Compute
Option from “Adjust” to “Optimized” and press OK to mirror the cut.
e. Your part should now look like the image below. Check that BOTH the cut AND the
chamfer have been mirrored across the display.
f. Save the part with the version description as “Cut mirrored.”
PART 3: MODIFYING THE BOTTOM HALF
4. Copy the bottom half file over from Lab 2.
a. Open the CADLAB 2 folder in the data panel and right-click on the part named
“Bottom_Half.”
b. Select “Copy” from the list and when a pop-up appears ensure that the file location is ME
170 > CADLAB 4, and then select the “Copy” option.
5. Add a fillet.
a. Select the Fillet tool (hotkey F) under the “Modify” tab.
b. Select the outer edge on the front face of the part and enter 4.5mm as the fillet radius as
shown in the images below.
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Indented Face
6. Create holes on the indented face of the part.
a. Start a new sketch on the indented face of the part (shown in the image above).
b. Select the Point tool from the Create tab and place 2 points – one to the right and one to
the left of the origin (the axes and the origin are drawn out in the image below).
c. Use the Horizontal/Vertical Constraint on one point and the origin to make sure it lies on
the horizontal (X) axis. Do the same for the other point and the origin.
d. Use the Symmetric Constraint to make the two points you just placed symmetric about
the vertical (Z) axis.
e. Dimension the points to be 15mm apart.
f. Once your sketch looks like the image below, finish the sketch and rename it as “Bottom
Hole Points”. Observe all the constraints shown in the image!
Z Axis
Origin
X Axis
g. Under the Create tab, select the Hole tool, and select the 2 points you just created as the
“Sketch Points.”
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
h. Change the “Extents” to “All” and enter the hole diameter as 12.25mm. Press OK to
create the holes (the “Extent” type for the Hole tool is for through cuts just like in extrude!).
i. Note: If your holes don’t cut through the material, try flipping the direction in the pop-up
box.
j. Your part should now look like this.
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
7. Add chamfers to the top of the holes.
a. Under the Modify tab, select the Chamfer tool.
b. Select the top edges of the holes and enter 1mm as the distance value.
8. Hollow out the part and add more features.
a. Under the “Modify” tab, select the Shell tool .
b. This tool hollows a solid by removing a face and setting a wall thickness.
c. Click on the bottom face of the part and enter 1.5mm as the shell thickness.
d. Notice that the walls of the holes are overlapping because of the shell thickness we
selected. While reducing the overall shell thickness is one fix, it would weaken the entire
part. Instead, we'll take a smarter approach by offsetting only the outer faces of the walls of
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
the hole to resolve the interference while keeping the rest of the shell intact for better
strength after manufacturing.
e. Under the Modify tab, select the Offset Face tool, select the outside faces of both holes as
shown in the image below, and type -0.75mm as the dimension, and press OK.
f. Notice how the outer walls of the 2 holes don’t interfere with each other anymore!
9. Add a hole without a wall.
a. Start a new sketch on the indented face on the top side of the part (the same way you did in
Section 6 of the lab).
b. Create a point and dimension it so that it is 14mm above the origin. Then add a
Horizontal/Vertical constraint to the point and the origin so the point is directly above it.
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
c. Finish the sketch and rename it as “Top Hole Point” in the browser panel.
d. Use the Hole tool (like you did in Section 6) to create a through hole (think: what would the
“Extent” type be for a through hole – you might need to change it in the pop-up box) with the
diameter as 12.5mm.
e. Notice how the hole we just created doesn’t have walls whereas the first 2 holes have a
wall!
f. Can you think of a reason why this happened? (Hint: Look at the timeline to observe the
order in which we created the different features.)
10. Learn how to use the loft tool to create a special feature.
a. Start a new sketch on the outer ring of the bottom face of the part.
b. Using the “Center-Diameter Circle” tool, create a circle
with the center as the top point of the outermost arc
and the diameter as 6.13mm.
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
c. Finish the sketch and rename it as “Hook Base”.
d. Extrude the circle (make sure to make multiple selection to select the entire circle) by -
2.5mm. Ensure that the “Operation” is selected as “Join.”
e. Notice how the extrusion is merged with the main body!
f. Start another sketch on the outer ring of the bottom face of the part (the same plane that
you selected for creating the previous sketch as shown in the second last image on the
previous page).
g. Create a circle with a diameter of 2 mm.
h. Select the “Concentric” constraint and then select the boundary of the inner and outer
circles to make them concentric to each other. Finish the sketch and rename it as “Loft
Bottom Profile” in the browser panel.
i. Start a new sketch on this face.
j. Press the “P” key to use the project tool and
select the center of the circle to reference it
in the current sketch.
k. Go to Create > Rectangle > Center Rectangle
to create a square centered at the projected
point with side length as 3mm (think how you
would make a square using the center
rectangle tool). Finish the sketch and rename
it as “Loft Top Profile” in the browser panel.
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
l. An isometric perspective of the sketch is shown in the image below. Make sure to check
that you sketch appears to be on the correct plane.
m. Select the Loft tool from the Create tab. This tool smoothly transitions one profile into
another.
n. Select the square and circle profiles you just created by clicking on them with the loft tool
open (you may need to rotate the part to select the circular profile at the bottom). The
“Operation” should be set to “Cut.” Press OK to create the lofted cut.
o. Now, the lofted cut should look like the image below.
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
11. Create a groove using the sweep tool.
a. Start a new sketch on the YZ plane.
b. Rotate the camera slightly and use the Project tool to project the edge shown in the image
below (note the edge selected is the curved edge on the inner side of the wall of the bottom
side of the part).
Projection
Edge
c. After the projection click on the YZ plane in the View Cube to look at the sketch plane
straight on again!
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
d. Notice how projecting the arc onto the YZ plane results in a straight line. This happens
because the projection captures only the vertical component of the arc in that plane,
similar to breaking a 3D vector into its individual components along different axes. That is
the essence of a projection. Until now, we used the Project tool mainly to reference
geometry from other sketches. In this case, we are using it to intentionally extract geometry
along a specific axis we want to work with.
e. Starting at the end point of the projected line, use the 2-Point Rectangle tool to create a
rectangle with the following dimensions (the rectangle sketched ON the YZ plane as shown
in the image on the left below):
f. The image below shows the sketch in comparison to the entire part (the rectangle is inside
the part!).
g. Finish Sketch and rename it as “Sweep Profile” in the browser panel.
h. Select the Sweep tool from the Create dropdown. This tool extrudes a profile along a given
path.
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
i. Select the new rectangle as the profile (you may need to hide the body in the browser panel
to select the rectangle). Select the inner edge as the path (the same edge that was
projected earlier in this section). The “Operation” should automatically be selected as
“Cut.” Press OK to create the sweep cut.
j. Your part should now look like the image below. Notice the groove created in the part.
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
12. Create a hole by modifying the timeline.
a. Start a new Sketch on the top, indented face of the part as shown in the image.
b. Place a point (Create > Point) and dimension it so that it is 11mm away from the origin in
both X and Z directions. Finish Sketch and rename it as “Small Hole Point” in the browser
panel.
c. Use the Hole tool to make a through hole using the point with a diameter of 3.3mm (again
think what the “Extent” should be set as for a through hole).
d. Rotate the part over to observe the hole you just created.
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
e. As you can see, the hole we just created does not have any walls, just like the top hole,
because both were added after the shell feature in the design timeline. This highlights how
important the sequence of feature creation is in Fusion. Now consider a real-world
situation. Imagine you are working on your team project and realize you need to add this
hole, but your teammates want it to have walls like the bottom two holes. Do you delete all
the steps and start over? Of course not. This is exactly where modifying the timeline
becomes useful. By moving this last-minute hole feature before the shell was created, you
can make sure it has walls just like the others.
f. In the design timeline at the bottom-left, select the Hole feature, then hold down Shift and
select the Sketch it is based on (selecting both objects).
g. Drag them along the timeline until they precede the Shell feature and drop them there.
h. Note: If you are unable to move the timeline, ensure that your timeline matches the
example timeline shown above and delete any additional sketches that might be there. It
could also be that one of the features is mistakenly linked to the features you are trying to
move, which is why Fusion can’t move the current features before that one. Delete such
relations.
i. Observe how the part changes (specifically the underside). Think why the change
happened.
j. Save the part with the version description as “Part modifications complete.”
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
PART 4: MODIFYING THE TOP HALF
13. Copy the top half file over from Lab 2.
a. Open the CADLAB 2 folder in the data panel and right-click on the part named “Top_Half.”
b. Select “Copy” from the list and when a pop-up appears ensure that the file location is ME
170 > CADLAB 4, and then select the “Copy” option.
14. Add a fillet.
a. Select the hotkey F under the “Modify” tab to add a fillet.
b. Select the outer edge on the front face of the part and enter 7mm as the fillet radius as
shown in the images below.
15. Shell the part.
a. Use the Shell tool, select the bottom face, and enter a thickness of 1.5mm to shell the part
as shown in the images below.
16. Create a hole.
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
a. Start a new sketch on the top (flat) face of the part as shown in the image below.
b. Create a new point, dimension it to the origin as shown in the image. Make sure to use
parametric dimensions as highlighted in the image (check previous labs if you need a
refresher on how to create a parametric dimension). In this case, the 14mm dimension
should be 2x the 7mm dimension.
c. Finish the sketch and rename it as “Hole Point” in the
browser panel.
d. Create a through hole using the point with a diameter of
3.9mm (remember to change the “Extent” for a through
hole).
e. Your part should now look like the image on the right.
17. Add ribs to the part.
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
a. Ribs are thin, supportive features added to a part to increase the strength and stiffness
without significantly increasing material use. In our case, you can see that the square wall
in the center is completely unsupported so we will add ribs to strengthen the area.
b. We will use construction planes to sketch the rib profile towards the edges of the square
wall, since placing the ribs at the center isn’t ideal for structural support.
c. Under the “Construct” dropdown, select the “Offset Plane” option as shown below. This
tool allows you to create a new sketch plane at a distance from the specified plane or face.
d. Choose the YZ plane from the browser panel and enter “-6mm” as the distance to create
an offset plane. Rename the construction plane as “Rib Plane” in the browser panel.
e. The new offset plane created is shown in the image below.
f. Start a new sketch on the offset plane just created.
g. Expand the “Sketch Palette” (placed towards the right side of the screen) and select
the “Slice” option.
h. You may need to expand the sketch palette as shown in the image.
i. The Slice option in the Sketch Palette cuts the model at the sketch plane, giving a
clear cross-sectional view for easier profile creation (shown in the image below).
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
j. Use the Project tool to include the highlighted borders in the sketch. Select the 2 lines
indicated by the red arrows (shown in the image below) for the projection.
k. Use the Line tool to create a triangle with the two projected edges. The height of the line
should be 5.25mm and it should be at an angle of 45 degrees with the base.
l. Note: To create an angular dimension, click on the slanted line and the base, then drag the
dimension out at an angle.
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
m. Repeat steps (h) to (j) to create another line on the other side with the following dimensions
(3.7mm and 45 degrees):
n. Your sketch should now look like the image below. Pay attention to the fact that the longer
line is in the larger cavity and the shorter line is in the smaller cavity.
o. Finish the sketch and rename it as “Rib Profiles” in the browser panel.
p. Under the “Create” tab, select the “Rib” tool, then select the 5.25mm line. Enter 1mm as
the rib thickness and ensure that the “Thickness Direction” is selected as symmetric.
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
q. Repeat step (n) for the other side keeping the following things in mind:
i. You may need to unhide the “Rib Profiles” sketch from the browser panel to select
the other line.
ii. You will need to also select the “Flip Direction” option for this rib as shown in the
image below:
r. You can now hide the “Rib Profiles” sketch in the browser panel (i.e., toggle the visibility
OFF) to get a clear view of the part. Your part should now look like this:
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
18. Create a groove using the sweep tool.
a. To join the top and bottom halves during assembly, we will need to create a groove in the
top half that fits exactly into the groove we made for the bottom half in section 11 of this lab.
b. Start a sketch on the YZ plane and project the inner arc (this is exactly the same as the
steps in section 11 parts (a) to (c) of this lab):
c. Starting at the end point of the projected line, use the 2-Point Rectangle tool to create a
rectangle with the following dimensions:
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
d. Finish Sketch and rename it as “Sweep Profile” in the browser panel.
e. Using the Sweep tool, select the new rectangle as the profile. Select the inner edge as the
path (the same edge that was projected earlier in this section). The “Operation” should be
selected as “Join.” Press OK to create the sweep.
f. Your part should now look like the image below. Notice the groove created in the part.
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
19. Mirror the ribs.
a. Select the Mirror tool from the “Create” dropdown.
b. In this case we will be mirroring features, so change the “Pattern Type” from Faces to
Features.
c. For the Object, select the 2 Ribs from the timeline as shown in the image below.
d. For the Mirror Plane, select the YZ plane from the browser panel, change the Compute
Option from “Adjust” to “Optimized” and press OK to mirror the cut.
e. Your part should now look like the image below.
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
20. Pattern the existing hole.
a. Select the Rectangular Pattern tool from the Create tab, set the “Object Type” to Features,
and select the Hole feature from the timeline (hover over icons to identify it as the Shell and
Hole have similar icons). Choose the X axis as the direction, set the quantity to 3, and
distance to –14 mm. If the holes don’t appear on the part, reverse the pattern direction
using the arrow. You practiced a similar pattern in the previous lab, so this should feel
familiar.
b. Your front side of part should now look like the image below.
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
21. Create slots in the part.
a. Start a sketch on the top face of the rectangular wall as shown in the image below:
b. Use the Project tool to project the top rectangular surface and the Z Axis.
c. Using the 2-Point Rectangle tool, create two rectangular slots on the rectangular border as
shown in the image below. The rectangles should be symmetric about the Z Axis (think how
you would make them symmetric!) and should be 8mm and 5mm long. Finish the sketch
and rename it as “Rectangular Slots” in the browser panel.
d. So far, we’ve used the extrude tool either as a through cut or by specifying a set distance.
This time, we’ll use the “To Object” Extent Type to extrude the rectangular slots down to
the base of the part. This option is useful when you want the extrusion to stop precisely at
a surface, even if its position changes later.
e. Use the extrude tool to cut the rectangular slots down to the base of the part. You can do
this by selecting the rectangular slots as the profile (this will require exactly 3
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
selections!), then selecting the “Extent Type” as “To Object” and finally clicking on the
base of the part as shown in the image below.
Base
f. Your part should now look like the image below.
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
22. Reduce the height of the rectangular wall.
a. Start a sketch of the top face of the rectangular wall.
b. Project the rectangular boundaries and use the 2-Point Rectangle tool to create a rectangle
that cover the entire top rectangular surface.
c. Finish the sketch and rename it as “Top Surface” in the browser panel.
d. Using the extrude tool, select the entire top rectangular surface as shown in the image
below (this will require exactly 3 selections!) and cut it downwards by 1.25mm (Think:
What does a downwards cut mean? It means the distance should be -1.25mm).
23. Create another hole early in the part history.
a. Click and drag the timeline marker to before the shell was created. Before and after images
are shown below.
b. Start a sketch on the top face of the part as shown in
the image on the right.
c. Place a point on the Z axis that is 32mm above the
origin (think of ALL the constraints you will need to
fully define the position of the point here!).
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
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d. The sketch is shown in the image below.
e. Finish the sketch and rename it as “Top Hole Point” in the browser panel.
f. Use the Hole tool to create a through hole with the diameter as 2mm (at this point in the
course, you should be able to figure out the ALL the settings you will need in this step!).
g. This is how the hole should look from the back and front:
h. Move the timeline marker all the way to the end.
i. Rotate the part and notice how at the top of the part, the swept groove/lip is not cut by the
hole (if you don’t see a groove/lip on the right or left side, read part (l) of this section below).
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j. Double click on the Sweep feature in the timeline and adjust it for a larger gap. Change both
the distances to 0.97 (this means that the sweep distance should be 97% of the path
distance selected) as shown in the image below.
k. Notice in the image above how the sweep is slightly away from the hole now.
l. Note: You may be wondering why there are 2 distances in the sweep now. This is because
the profile was created at the bottom of the part, so it had to sweep in both directions
symmetrically to complete the sweep on the entire path.
m. Note: If you did not see a full sweep after creating the hole in this section, you may want to
delete the sweep back in the timeline and redo it.
n. Save the part with the version description as “Part Modifications Complete.”
o. You have now completed the design stage for all the parts required in this product’s
assembly! We will now assemble the product in a future lab!
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Grainger College of Engineering ME 170: CADLAB#4
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PART X: SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
1. Make sure that all your sketches are fully constrained (i.e., no blue lines, all black) and fully
enclosed (the inside of the sketches should be shaded in a light blue color).
2. The following files should be in your CADLAB 4 folder in Fusion:
a. Display.f3d
b. Bottom_Half.f3d
c. Top_Half.f3d
3. Go to ME170 Canvas website and the CADLAB Assignments content area. Click directly on the
“CADLAB#4” assignment title and use the “Write Submission” button to type “Ready for
Grading”. Please complete this part on Canvas otherwise we wouldn’t be able to grade your
Lab even if you have completed all the parts on Canvas.
4. Please do not go back and change your files in the Fusion CADLAB 4 folder. You can copy files
into future labs, but other than this, leave Lab 4 files as they are.
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