Your first part
The Part Studio, the feature list, and why Onshape keeps parts together instead of one per file.
By the end you can
- Create a part from a sketch and read the feature list that produced it
- Explain what a Part Studio is and why it differs from a file-per-part workflow
- Roll back the feature list to insert a feature in the right place
On this page · 4 sections
A Part Studio is where geometry gets made. It is the single biggest difference between Onshape and the file-based CAD you may have seen before.
One studio, many parts
In file-based CAD, one file holds one part. To make a bracket that fits a plate, you open the plate, measure it, close it, open the bracket, and type the number in. When the plate changes, nothing tells the bracket.
A Part Studio holds as many parts as belong together, modelled in the same space. The bracket can be built directly from the plate's geometry. Change the plate and the bracket follows.
Think 'mechanism', not 'part'
A good rule for FTC: one Part Studio per mechanism. The whole intake — side plates, standoffs, roller mount — lives in one studio, because those parts are only correct relative to each other.
The feature list is the part
Down the left side is the feature list: every operation, in order, that produced what you are looking at. It is not a history log you can ignore. It is the part — Onshape rebuilds the geometry by replaying it top to bottom.
This means two things worth internalising early:
- Order matters. A fillet added before a hole behaves differently from one added after.
- You can go back. Drag the rollback bar up the list to return to any earlier state, insert a feature there, and drop the bar back down.
Rollback beats deleting
When you realise a feature belongs earlier in the list, do not delete everything after it and rebuild. Roll back, insert, roll forward. Onshape will tell you if anything downstream cannot cope.
Name things as you go
An unnamed feature list reads Extrude 1, Extrude 2, Extrude 3, Fillet 1. Six weeks later nobody knows which is which, least of all you.
-
Rename features as you create them.
Plate profile,Bearing bore,Lightening pattern. It costs two seconds each. -
Rename the parts too. The parts list on the right is what your assembly and your bill of materials will show.
-
Use the same names the build team uses out loud. If everyone calls it the dead-axle block, do not name it
Part 4.
Next
You have a part. The next lesson is about the feature that made it, and the four options on it that people miss.
Finished this lesson?
Mark it complete to track your progress.