is it possible to animate features of a part???

i'm trying to animate a plate with two sets of holes. i want to start off with a blank plate, then the first set of holes, then the next set of holes (as shown with the pics i included). i tried suppressing the features, creating a key point at a specific time on the timeline and unsurpressing the features at different key points on the timeline. didn't work. any help would be appreciated, thanks.

1 Answer

i've still been playing around with the idea, and so far the closest i've come is making three different plates at the different stages, put them in an assembly, and hide/show the parts as needed. if anyone can think of a better way, i'm all ears.