Free Chrome extension for Onshape
Select a hole and FRCShaper offers the part that fits: a bearing, a bolt and nut, a hex shaft, a gear. The real part shows up right where it will go. Press Enter and it's inserted and mated. Or press ShiftA and it fills in a whole gearbox.
Real Onshape parts: FRCDesign's Exercise 3 gearbox, filled in with Shift+A.
How it works
FRCShaper watches what you select in Onshape. When your selection fits a part, a small card by your pointer offers it.
Click a bearing hole, two holes a bolt could go through, two pulleys, a sketch line. Whatever you'd mate by hand.
The real part from FRCDesignLib appears in place, in its own colour, before anything changes. Tab picks another option.
It's inserted, mated the right way round and filed into a folder, usually in under a second. CtrlZ undoes the whole run.
Features
Every clip uses real Onshape parts. Hover a small one to play it.
Auto-assembler · ShiftA
Draw your layout sketch, put in the plates and press Shift+A. FRCShaper plans bearings, shafts, gears, pulleys, belts, motors, bolts, spacers and rivets, shows you the plan, then puts it all in within seconds.
Fasteners
Select a hole's two edges and FRCShaper measures the stack, picks the stock bolt length and adds the Nylock nut and any spacer. Select a row of holes and it bolts them all with one Replicate.
Motors and drive
Click a motor's circle of holes and the Kraken, Falcon, NEO or Minion goes on, turned to match the plate. A circle of your layout sketch becomes the gear, pulley or sprocket it's drawn as, from the vendor you prefer.
Two pulleys or sprockets, and the belt or chain between them, cut to a whole number of teeth or links.
Click a corner's two frame tubes for an SDS, WCP, REV or Thrifty swerve module, or pick a wheel and tread for a hex shaft.
Robot frame, Robot shaft and Robot spacer filled in from what you click. Turn sketch lines into tube in one go.
Press A in an Assembly and type. The whole FRC library, inserted onto the edge you selected.
Bolt a whole row of holes, add holes to an existing Replicate, or pattern parts along an edge.
FRCShaper Dark or Light with frosted-glass panels, or Onshape's own look, in any accent colour.
Your account
With a free FRCShaper account your settings follow you to every computer, and FRCShaper counts your time in Onshape: by day, by hour, by document, and the parts it put in for you.
Keyboard first
Everything starts from a selection and a key. You can change FRCShaper's keys in Chrome's shortcut settings.
Get started
FRCShaper is on its way to the Chrome Web Store. The Add to Chrome buttons will work as soon as it's listed.
Install it from the Chrome Web Store. It works in Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge.
Make a free account from the toolbar button so your settings and stats sync, or pick Use As Guest to keep everything in that browser.
Open a document and select something. The card appears when there's a part that fits.
Questions
Yes. The extension, the account and the website are free.
No. FRCShaper works through Onshape's own page, the same way you would by hand. It never calls Onshape's REST API, so it doesn't count against your team's API limits.
Only when you run something: pressing Enter on a card, or accepting the auto-assembler's plan. Every run can be undone at once with Ctrl+Z, and Shift+J switches FRCShaper off.
From FRCDesignLib, the FRC parts library for Onshape from FRCDesign.org, plus Onshape's standard content for metric bolts.
No. Use As Guest keeps your settings and stats in that browser only. An account syncs them between computers and unlocks Friends, Teams and this site's stats page.
Your account details and the settings and stats you sync. Never your CAD models. The privacy policy lists all of it.
Credits
Made FRCShaper
Designed and built FRCShaper: the auto-assembler, the click rules, the themes, the Guide and everything else in it.
The FRC parts library for Onshape, from FRCDesign.org
Nearly every part FRCShaper inserts comes from FRCDesignLib: bearings, bolts, nuts, spacers, hex shafts, gears, pulleys, sprockets, wheels, motors and swerve modules. Part search looks through the whole library, and the previews you see before a part goes in are drawn from its models.
FRCDesignLib grew out of MKCad, the library started by Team 1836, the Milkenknights.
The auto-assembler builds gearboxes the way their learning course teaches, and the gearboxes in the guides' clips are their Exercise 2 and Exercise 3 solutions.
Wrote the Robot shaft, Robot spacer and Robot frame FeatureScripts. FRCShaper's Part Studio tools fill them in for you.
FRCShaper isn't affiliated with Onshape, FIRST, FRCDesign.org or ReCalc.
Let FRCShaper do the clicking. You do the design.