FRC COTS is a Fusion 360 add-in that gives robotics teams a clean, modern interface for browsing and inserting COTS parts directly into designs. No more digging through Data Panels or re-creating parts someone already modeled. Just click → insert → joint → done.
Designed by FRC Team 5000 — The Hammerheads — Logan de Laar
- Browses all
.f3dparts inside a cloud project named FRC_COTS - Supports folder navigation, search, and favorites
- Shows preview icons if available
- Inserts parts into the active design with one click
- Automatically creates rigid joints aligned to:
- Circular edges
- Cylindrical faces
- Planar faces (center keypoint)
- Joint origins
- Works on macOS and Windows
- Beautiful UI with Dark / Light theme toggle
Create a project in Fusion 360 called:
FRC_COTS
Inside that project, add your .f3d CAD files in whatever folder structure you want:
FRC_COTS/
Motors/
Kraken_X60.f3d
NEO.f3d
Bearings/
6804.f3d
Gearboxes/
MaxPlanetary.f3d
These folders become categories in the add-in.
(Optional) Preview icons can be added here inside the add-in folder:
FRC-COTS/icons/<PartName>.png
Download the latest FRC-COTS.zip from the Releases section on GitHub and extract it.
After extracting, rename the top-level folder to FRC-COTS (exact spelling, including hyphen).
Place the folder here depending on OS:
%AppData%/Autodesk/Autodesk Fusion 360/API/AddIns/FRC-COTS
~/Library/Application Support/Autodesk/Autodesk Fusion 360/API/AddIns/FRC-COTS
Ensure these files exist in that folder:
FRC-COTS/
FRC-COTS.py
FRC-COTS.manifest
frc_cots_palette.html
icons/
- Launch Fusion 360
- Go to UTILITIES → Add-Ins → Scripts and Add-Ins
- Select the Add-Ins tab
- Locate FRC-COTS
- Click Run
- (Optional) Enable Run on Startup
A new button will appear:
Design Workspace → Insert Panel → FRC COTS Library
- In the canvas, select circular edges / cylindrical faces / planar faces where a part should attach
- Click a part in the COTS Library UI
- The add-in:
- Inserts a reference occurrence
- Ungrounds the component if needed
- Adds a rigid joint so position can be adjusted later
Favorites and theme settings persist across sessions.
- If a part has a joint origin defined in it (the first one found) then it is inserted using the joint origin. It points the joint origin positive z-axis toward the mating part.
- If no joint origin exists then it is inserted with the coordinate origin as the center and the positive z-axis toward the mating part.
- Spacer and Shaft parts can be defined as 'dynamic spacers' so their length can be customized during insertion.
- Some parts that are already setup as dynamic spacers can be found in the
spacersdirectory of the Add-In files. - To create a dynamic spacer you do the following:
- Make a part that is a short section of the spacer or shaft. For shaft I used 2" lengths and for spacers I used 1/4" lengths. It doesn't matter what length. I chose those so the thumbnails looked good.
- Each end of the part should be a planar face that is capable of being "Press/Pulled".
- Create a joint origin at one end of the part with the z-direction of the joint origin facing outward.
- Run the
Make Spacercommand found under theUtilitiesPanel. Check the box to make this part a dynamic spacer. This sets an attribute on the part file that is hidden but allows it to be dectected as a dynamic spacer. Unchecking the box removes the attribute. - Hide the joint origin and the coordinate origin if it is showing and save the design.
- It should now be usable as a dynamic spacer.
- Just insert it from the FRC_COTS palette and it should bring up a different dialog to manipulate it.
- Autodesk Fusion 360 (latest public release)
- macOS Sonoma
Works in:
- Root assembly insertions
- Normal CAD workflows
Planned improvements:
- Automatic preview icon generation
- Multi-insert (one part to multiple targets)
- Configurable joint types
- Make configurable files work
- Insert custom length spacers (round and hex)
Logan de Laar
FRC Team 5000 — The Hammerheads
Hingham High School
MIT — free for all FRC teams