Replacing a drawing

[unheeding]

Hey guys,

i have to give this assignment to my teacher and he takes off points if you spent a certain amount of time on the drawing (he's going to use time command). what i need to do is take everything on my file (model AND layouts) and put it on another file where my time (date created, spent time, editing time ect.) is perfect. i know that my file will count that as the "last time modified" but it won't matter.

So basically i am going to delete what is on the "good time" file and replace it with everything from the other one. How do i do that?? In the end it has to be the same drawing with the same layouts but with different time/date settings.

Please don't tell me it's cheating i'm actually a good student, but this counts for a huge part of my semester and i really need to get the best grade i can!

THANKS

[Dadgad]

Welcome to the forum.
How isn't it cheating?
Expect a call from the department of Ends & Means.

If you are sure you want to try your hand at hacking the system,
you would do well to keep the original intact, and try your prestidigitation on a COPY.

Have you tried using the TIME command, and reading the commandline prompts, you might learn something.
Hell, I'm reasonably adept with some of this stuff, and I learned something!
Do you know how to use F2 to expand your commandline history window?

Understand that if you fail, the added time spent trying to subvert the
system would be added to the clock (which is one reason why you don't want to work on the original).

It's a pity you don't know a little more about the half dozen Autocad SYSTEM VARIABLES which are prefixed by TD.

[ReMark]

Put your cell phone away and do the drawing over. It should take less time.

[Tiger]

I can't see my a simple Erase on the "good timed" file in both Model and Layout and then Copy-Paste from the original file doesn't work?

And yes, it still is cheating - call a duck a duck, even if it really really want to be a swan.

[ReMark]

My personal opinion: I think it is a bad idea to be telling a student how to circumvent the system. It is unfair to his classmates who did not cheat.

[Organic]

My personal opinion: I think it is a bad idea to be telling a student how to circumvent the system. It is unfair to his classmates who did not cheat.

Marking a CAD drawing on the amount of time the file has been open is a stupid idea in the first place. The AutoCad timing function is not exactly accurate if you create new drawings based upon old drawing files or have multiple drawings open at once all day long.

Working efficiently in the workplace might be important but the OP is still learning and in my opinion shouldn't be marked on efficiency, but more on understanding and quality.

[Tiger]

My personal opinion: it's a stupid criteria from the professor. If a student spends a lot of time on a drawing perfecting it and perfecting it and perfecting it, he is also learning in the process and should not be penalised for it.

ReMarks suggestion, to do the drawing again when you know how to do it, is also a form of cheating or circumventing the system.

And everything said here is based on a loosly formulate question by the student. None here knows exactly how the teacher have framed the question and we really can't know the justification of using the time-function. It might be an excercise of commands that the students should know backwards.

[JD Mather]

Tell your instructor I have been teaching various CAD programs for 18 years (and before that I spent 15 years in industry) - I have never used time as a grading criteria.
As far as your question - I suggest you simply start over from scratch and you should show a decent (fast time now that you have experience).
Turn that in and a printout of this thread.

The time factor will come in when you take an examination. You should be concentrating on developing your skills, not on trying to figure out how to finagle an idealized time figure.
If you know what you are doing on the exam, you will have plenty of time. If you don't, you won't.

When you show your instructor this thread he/she is likely to respond that fast production is important consideration in the real world.
True.
But you are in learning stage, not production stage. Concentrate on quality. In my experience those who produce the best quality are also amoung the fastest in the end.
I have many who rush through an assigment and produce work that has to be re-worked. When you learn how to produce quality, how the program is supposed to work and how the drawings are correct - speed comes as a natural function of the quality process.

[ReMark]

Let's ask the professor.

Would you rather a student do a drawing over a second or even third time to see if he/she can create it more efficiently OR take all the time in the world then find a way to make it look like it took less time?

[Dadgad]

By the OP's own admission, it is clear that it is cheating.
Relative merits aside of the instructor's decision to factor in, or not, time spent to complete the drawing;
if that is the system which is in place, and the standard to which all of the other students in the class
are being held, then their is an unfair advantage being sought.

I'm with ReMark and the OP's classmates on this one, on purely ethical grounds.

All of the variables to which I alluded in my post are read only, except for one which does not affect the create date.
I was sort of sending the OP on an instructive wild goose chase, net gain new knowledge.

It does sound like a take home exam, if you will, based on how much of the semester grade it will represent.