CAD / CAM
Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) hold the keys to taking a design and concept to a tangible product. Being able to express your ideas within CAD will allow collaboration and visual expression of your concept and design; using CAM tools allows you to take your design and get it ready for manufacturing. Here's some tools that we can use to help you in the design process.
Solidworks delivers the ability to draw parts, make assemblies, produce animations and generate drawings. It can be used to develop a design, modify an exiting drawing, or create moving animations and movies. Its a powerful CAD software package that helps in the computer aided design of solids.
Autodesk's computer aided design package delivers very similar capability in solid modeling, but gears their design towards animation and presentation. Autodesk Inventor allow users to develop parts, assemblies, as well as animations. Their environment is very user friendly and supports many file types. Free for educators, this software is readily available here.
Sketchup is a different way at drawing. Its powerful way of pushing and pulling objects is a great way for users not used to drawing in 3D get their feet wet. Its simple and fast, but has limitations that some of the more powerful CAD programs have such as complex lofting, swept cuts and others.
Eagle PCB is a circuit board design tool that helps with the design and development of multi-layer printed circuit boards (PCB). Eagle has the ability to auto-route, link circuit design to a PCB design. Using a large library of components, you can design simple single-layer to complex multi-layer boards.
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Fusion 360 is a complete suite from design to manufacturing. Fusion 360 can be used to quickly iterate on design ideas with sculpting and form and modeling tools. It can be used to test fit and motion, perform simulations, create assemblies, make photo-realistic renderings, and animations. Fusion 360 can also create toolpaths to machine components or use 3D printing workflow to create a workpiece.