SolidWorks Community

There's Community, and Then There's Community

When it comes to SolidWorks (and engineering in general), what does Community mean to you?  User Groups? Forums? 3D Content Central? None of the above?

That's what we'd like to find out.  SolidWorks Corporation has developed a comprehensive survey to learn exactly what designers and engineers want from the SolidWorks Community.  Your answers will help us to help you with training, networking, model sharing, and other services designed to make it easy to access, utilize, and contribute to the community.  The survey is long, and will take about ten minutes to complete.  We'll also follow up with a second survey in a couple of weeks (take them both, please).

This is a very important initiative for everyone involved with SolidWorks.  The SolidWorks Community is one of the best, and we would like to make it even better.

Click here to take the survey!

On Top of Spaghetti...

..or more precisely, fettuccine.  Richard Williams is bridging the gap between mechanical engineering and pasta.

I got some new pictures from Richard last night showing the progress he's made - I hope they make it into his blog soon.

Divided We Stand, United We Conquer

As a whole, the SolidWorks Community is pretty tight-knit - user group leaders have their own private discussion area, dozens of them meet yearly at SolidWorks World, and plenty of them keep in touch all year.  More and more, user group leaders are visiting other groups to share information and/or do technical presentations

There's something exciting going on this year that's gaining traction - combined user group meetings.  On May 3rd, the members of the Calgary and Edmonton user groups will gather halfway between the two cities for a day full of SolidWorks stuff.  In late May, seven group leaders will bring themselves and some of their members to Columbia, SC for the SESWUW.  A collection of groups in the Midwest are planning a combined meeting for August 5th somewhere near Madison, WI.  You may also have heard about a large event in the Northeast in mid-September.  After that, it won't be long until SolidWorks World 2009 in Orlando.

I'm sure we'll hear of other groups that are combining their strengths, talents, and resources to provide the very best experience for their user group members.

Southeast SolidWorks User Workshop

Tony Cantrell runs a little ol' user group in Columbia, SC, home of the South Carolina Fighting Gamecocks, the 2005 NCAA Equestrian National Champions.  They've also had a couple of well known football coaches (Lou Holtz and Steve Spurrier).  But I digress.

Anywayyy....Tony decided early this year after seeing the SWUGN Summit schedule, that  maybe SolidWorks users in his area needed a little something special.  Thus, the Southeast SolidWorks User Workshop was born.

The two-day event features a who's-who of SolidWorks experts, a long list of SolidWorks representatives, some outstanding vendors, and seven (yes, seven) SolidWorks User Group Leaders scheduled to present on topics ranging from Design Validation to Assembly Modeling, and Drawings to Sheet Metal.  Throw in a couple of Tips and Tricks sessions, and you've got yourself a mini-SolidWorks World - for just $45.00.

Columbia is an easy drive from places like Atlanta, Charlotte, Greenville, Augusta, and Charleston, so put a carpool together in your city and join us on May 29th and 30th at Midlands Technical College (Tony teaches there too - what a trooper).  For more information and to register for the event, visit the event page on the SWUGN website.

SWUGN Spotlight - North Alabama SolidWorks User Group

One of the most active SolidWorks User Groups in the world resides in Huntsville, Alabama - The North Alabama SolidWorks User Group.  Resurrected nearly three years ago by Ricky Jordan, NASWUG has steadily increased membership, added more meetings, and has been able to attract top-level SolidWorks talent to this hotbed of technology (aerospace, defense, manufacturing).  Case in point - visits by former SolidWorks CEO John McEleney, Greg Jankowski, and more recently, Marlon Banta.  It sure doesn't hurt that Ricky is one of the most respected SolidWorks users in the known universe.

Many of you will be familiar with NASWUG members through blogs, forums, and events like SolidWorks World and SWUGN Technical Summits.  Brian McElyea is the CadFanatic, Richard Hall is a long time SolidWorks user and first-class presenter, and Gary Hall (no relation) may be the nicest and most helpful person I ever met.  The last NASWUG meeting I attended brought SolidWorks users out in droves, and I was quite impressed by their knowledge, and by their desire for even more knowledge.

Among the many reasons to praise the leaders and members of NASWUG is the overwhelming support of the SWUGN Summit series of events.  In 2007 and 2008, the Nashville event drew record numbers of attendees, and 30% of those came in from Huntsville - a 105 mile drive!!

Ricky is always looking for ways to increase benefits to his user group members, and I know we can look forward to new ideas, even higher attendance, and a user group that will always be at the top of the SWUGN class.  Great job NASWUG!