This tutorial is a continuation of the previous tutorial here. If you havent completed the first part, it is advisable to complete the first part before doing this part.
In this part, now were going to assemble few pieces of the Lego together to make some shape. After the completion of this tutorial, you can build your own 3D Lego!
1. Click File => New, and select Assembly.
2. The default setting for SolidWorks would automatically run the "Insert Components" feature. You can see it on the left side bar. Click on the "Browse" button, and locate the Lego piece you made in Part 1 of this tutorial. If you havent closed it yet, it should appear on the "Open Documents" window above the "Browse" button.
3. Now you should see your Lego piece displayed on the display window. Left click to confirm the placement of the piece. Now to insert another piece, click the "Insert Components" button located at the "Assembly" ribbon.
4. Same thing as step 3, left click anywhere to confirm the placement of your second Lego piece. You should see something like shown below.
5. After having two pieces together, now its time to arrange the placement of the pieces. Click on the "Mate" button located at the "Assembly" ribbon. You should see the Mate tab on the left side of the screen.
6. On the Mate tab on the left, select "Coincident" from the Standard Mates, and select the side of the first Lego pieces (Shown blue in figure below).
7. Now select the same side of the second piece. A pop-up box should appear after selecting the two surfaces. Click on the green thick button on the pop-up box.
8. Do the same thing as above, click Coincident, but now select the bottom surface of the the piece.
9. Then select the bottom surface of the second piece. Click the green thick on the pop-up box.
10. Same again, apply Coincident Mate (or some people call Constrain) on the two surfaces of the piece shown below. Click OK (green thick button) after that. Now your Lego piece should be arranged nicely, adjacent to each other. By now you should understand how to apply a simple Coincident mate according to your design intent.
11. Repeat step 3 and 4 to insert another piece of Lego.
12. Click on the Mate button. Now on the left side tab, click on the Concentric mate, and select the two cylindrical surface as shown below.
13. Now give Coincident mate on the side surface of the piece as shown below.
14. Finally, give Coincident constrain on the top surface of the previous piece and the bottom surface of the third piece. Click OK to finalize the Mate.
15. Now you have completed the first series of tutorial to build a simple Lego assembly. You can have an experiment yourself to build a more complex Lego assembly :)
