WELCOME TO ONSHAPE!

This exercise shows new CAD users how to create a Hollow Sphere, one part of a Gyrosphere - a conceptual space exploration vechicle.

Use the arrow navigation buttons below to follow through these instructions as you work.

Most of the pages of this tutorial contain a video to illustrate the steps and help you succeed.

CREATE AN ACCOUNT

The free education version of Onshape is a collaborative platform for student engineering project and class work.

Onshape is entirely online - there's nothing to install.

Click the New Tab icon in the top-right corner to open this tutorial in a new tab in your browser - this will make it easier to follow along as you work.

If you haven't already, create an Onshape account here.

Once you've signed in, return to the guide and continue to the next page.

COPY THIS DOCUMENT

To work with the Gyrosphere models, you need to make your own copy of the public, read-only Gyrosphere document.

Steps

1. Click the Onshape logo at the top-left hand corner of the window. This will return you to your Onshape dashboard.
2. To the left, click on the Public filters to view all public documents.
3. Search for the document name "Onshape: Simple sphere exercise" in the top advanced search bar.
4. Right-click the Onshape: Simple Sphere document, and choose Copy workspace...
5. Optional: Change the name of your document.
6. The workspace will open.
7. Click the arrow at the bottom right of this page to continue.

Note:

The Public documents are a great resource for finding ideas, best practices and examples of how to model and design in CAD. Spend a few minutes exploring!

Create a New Part Studio

Once the new workspace is open, it's necessary to create a Part Studio in which to model the Gyrosphere.

Steps

1. Click the Home tab to minimize any open folders.
2. Click the Insert New Element tab at the bottom of the page, and choose Create Part Studio from the pop-up menu.
3. Right-click the new "Part Studio 1" tab you just created to rename the Part Studio to "My Sphere".

Note:

Onshape defaults to Imperial units. If you would prefer to work in metric units, you can change the document workspace units.
The default Onshape units can also be changed.

Sketch a Circle

The first step to model a sphere is to sketch a circle.

Steps

1. Left-click the Top plane to select it, and click the Sketch button to create a new sketch.
2. Right-click the graphics area and choose View normal to sketch plane to orient the sketch to make it easier to edit.
3. Sketch a circle by clicking the centered Circle button , and then left-click on the origin in the window.
4. Move the mouse right and left-click to finish the circle.
5. Use the Dimension button to set the diameter of the circle to 100in/2540mm and press Enter on your keyboard.
6. Drop down the Camera and render options menu on the right and choose Isometric to change the view so that you can see the whole circle.
7. Select the green check mark to complete the sketch.

Tip:

If you made a mistake, click undo at the top to try again.

Extrude the Cylinder

Now that we have a 2D Sketch, we're going to "Extrude" it to create a cylinder.

Steps

1. Select Sketch 1 on the left to highlight the sketch you just created.
2. Click the Extrude button to create a new extrude.
3. Change Blind to Symmetric to extrude in both directions from the sketch plane.
4. Enter a depth of 100in/2540mm to create a new solid part.
5. Select the green check mark to complete the extrude.

Tip:

If you finished the extrude and want to go back and edit it, right-click on the extrusion (or sketch) that you want to change, and choose Edit.

Round the Edges

In order to change our cylinder to a sphere, we need to round the top and bottom edges.

Steps

1. Click the Fillet feature from the Toolbar along the top.
2. Left-click the top and bottom edges of the cylinder to add them to the entities list.
3. Enter a radius of 50in/1270mm.
4. Select the green check mark to round the top and bottom edges and create the sphere.

Food for thought:

Why did this method work to create a sphere? (Hint: What is the mathematical relationship between radius and diameter?)

Make the Sphere Hollow

Right now our sphere is solid, but we want to put people inside, so we need to make it hollow.

Steps

1. Click on the Sphere to highlight it.
2. Use the Shell feature with the Hollow option checked to remove inner material from the sphere leaving a 4in/100mm wall thickness.
3. To make the sphere transparent, right-click on Part 1 in the parts list on the lower-left corner of the window and choose Edit Appearance.
4. Use the Transparency slider to set the transparency to 0.50 (50%).
5. Select the green check mark to complete the shell feature.

Sketch the Door

In order to get in and out of our Gyrosphere we need to make a hole in the side of our sphere.

Steps

1. Create a sketch on the Right plane. (Forget how? Go back to the "Sketching a circle" step to refresh your memory.)
2. Right-click the workspace and choose View normal to sketch plane in order to orient the sketch to make it easier to work with.
3. Sketch a centered circle centered from left to right in the sphere, above the origin.
4. Dimension the circle diameter at 60in/1524mm.
5. Dimension the distance from the circle center to the sphere center at 10in/254mm.
6. Select the green check mark to complete the sketch.

Remove Doors with Extrude

We can use the circle sketch we just made with extrude to remove material for the doors.

Steps

1. Left-click once on Sketch 2 to highlight it in the feature tree
2. Select Extrude from the Toolbar along the top.
3. Choose Remove to take material off of the solid.
4. Change the End type dropdown menu from Blind to Through all to cut through all of the features in a single direction.
5. Check the Second end position option to extrude in the opposite direction, and again choose the Through all end type.
6. Select the green check mark to extrude-remove in both directions, through all features, creating holes in your sphere for the Gyrosphere doors.

Mission Complete

Congratulations on modeling the sphere!

We hope you found this short exercise fun and useful. For more learning resources, please visit the Onshape Learning Center.

If you know how to do assembly, you can find the other parts of the Gyrosphere in the Onshape document and try to assemble it. Otherwise, keep an eye out for more exercises related to assembly, coming soon.

To send feedback, or for help and questions, visit the Onshape Forum.