The SolidWorks Blog

An update on the SolidWorks Engineering Stimulus Package

I recently sat down with Oboe Wu, the product manager who has been overseeing the deployment of the SolidWorks Engineering Stimulus Package (ESP) to discuss the results. You may recall that we previewed this at SolidWorks World in Orlando. It was subsequently deployed in North America, Europe, and parts of Asia. The goal was to provide engineers who had lost their jobs an opportunity--for free--to develop the next generation of skills that would land them a new career at a SolidWorks customer site.

The results that Oboe shared with me are staggering, and a sobering comment on the health of our market right now. The fast facts:

• Over 24,000 download requests
• More than 60,000 visits to the ESP website
• Over 150 newly certified CSWAs.

There was also an encouraging sign. In a recent survey of users we learned that 10.6% of the ESP participants had secured a new job. And this reached across geopolitical borders: 14 different languages were downloaded in ten countries around the world. The largest group of participants was 2D-centric engineers who had lost their jobs, and were looking for greater opportunity.

So those are the facts. But, as they say, behind each number is a personal story of frustration, hope, and, ultimately, triumph. I recently attended a SolidWorks User Group meeting in California and joined a dozen engineers at a table for some pizza before the event. I did not identify myself, just saying I was "with SolidWorks." One diner reached across the table and shook my hand, saying "please thank the people who made the ESP possible...I was laid off and saw no real hope for my future. I learned the new skills and am now actively pursuing several jobs that were never available to me before." While we discussed his experience, several customers offered to take his resume back to their companies and circulate it.

The real stars in this are the SolidWorks resellers. They are the ones who opened up their training facilities and instructors at no cost to the participants and have worked hard to arm the attendees with the skills they need to succeed.

To all of you: thank you for putting your trust in us in the past. We hope we can continue to find ways to pay back that investment you have made. I don't know how long we'll be in this recession, or how deep it will go. But I believe in the power of the human spirit to grow and reach up--and succeed.

SolidWorks 2009 Student Edition now available--featuring 64-bit support!

Here's some good news for student and educators out there.

As of today, the new SolidWorks Student Edition software is available for sale. This edition is based on SolidWorks 2009, and now includes support for 64-bit operating systems. I get at least one question a week about 64-bit support, so I know this is sure to make a lot of people happy.

If you want to learn more about SolidWorks Student Edition, visit our website. If you want to find out where you can buy the Student Edition, you can go here to contact the nearest approved reseller.

The SolidWorks Engineering Stimulus Package: now available in Europe

When we launched the Engineering Stimulus Package last month, we had a number of people ask when it would be available in Europe. So here's the good news--it's available now. If you live in Europe and you're unemployed, visit www.solidworks.com/ESP to download the package and get started today.

Good luck!

There is a hunger for these schools

Last month I had the honor, and the anguish, of drawing names from a stuffed box of applicants for 75 coveted freshman spots at the MATCH Charter Public High School in Boston. MATCH, along with a number of other area charter schools, consistently ranks among the best public schools in the nation for helping disadvantaged students attend, and succeed in, college.

There were too many applicants - 660 - for admission. Nearly all were from Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, and Hyde Park. It was standing-room only at the school for the anxious parents. I held their children's fate in my hands, literally. When a name was read, there were hoots, hollers, and hugs of joy. But after the last name was read, it was a different story. "Unlucky" doesn't begin to capture the devastated look in the eyes of the remaining parents. It tore my heart out. Their grace and dignity in accepting the bad news made it even more difficult.

Can we all share the urgency of those parents? As a country, can we rally behind the new president's call for more charter schools? This, of course, means lifting arbitrary caps and restrictions found in some states.

President Obama invoked Massachusetts as a role model for education. That is gratifying. Yet with thousands of inner-city students denied a chance to obtain the kind of education that suburbanites take for granted, are we living up to the president's praise? If not, shouldn't we?

At last: the SolidWorks Engineering Stimulus Package

Almost as soon as Jeff Ray announced the Engineering Stimulus Package (ESP) at SolidWorks World 2009, we started getting questions from many of you, asking about the details. Today, we're happy to announced that the program is live for those of you living in the US and Canada. For those of you in other parts of the world, we're working on making it available to you in the next 4-5 weeks.

To quote the SolidWorks website, "the SolidWorks Engineering Stimulus Package provides free SolidWorks 3D CAD software to an US or Canadian resident seeking to develop, upgrade, or refresh the valuable 3D CAD skills that employers need. In addition to the software, you get self-support, free training materials, free certification, and job leads."

If you're not familiar with the ESP, you get a limited-term trial version of SolidWorks Student Design Kit, which includes:

• SolidWorks Standard software (see Product Matrix for more details)
• Animation functionality
• Library standards
• Photorealistic rendering
• eDrawings®
• DWGeditor®
• Complete online documentation and tutorials
• 90-day term-of-use license
• One chance to take the CSWA exam for free

There's a lot more to the program than I can go into here, so visit our website to learn more. And if you can use it, download the package and start learning something new.

Oh, and here's Jeff explaining a little more:

Using the SolidWorks Certification Center to Structure Training

The Certification exams offered by SolidWorks have long been a means to test a users skills, and to gage their ability to understand the SolidWorks software.  Once someone passed they were issued a certificate, they printed it out and hung it on the wall.  Their interaction with the system was over and typically they forgot their log-in credentials for the Certification Center, and never found a need to go back.

This year the SolidWorks Certification Center has turned the corner and is on it's way to becoming an interactive area that will provide a number of tools that users and managers can use to do a variety of things.  The most recent release of the Certification Center includes some management tools that can help engineering managers discover the strengths and weaknesses of their team. 

When a team of engineers takes a certification exam, that data can be set up to be shared with a central person who can examine the results to get some idea of where his team is at.  Instead of trying to explain it via text, lets look at some screen shots.

In this first shot we can see the students that are in the 2009 Q1 M.E. Cad 101 Class:

 

It's a relatively small class with only two students, but it gets the point across.  By clicking on Mr. Luchini's name in the list I get the graphical feedback of how he did on his CSWA exam that he took.  As you can see he is in desperate need of help when it comes to mate and assembly creation.  Unfortunately he only scored a 40 and failed, but perhaps if he had taken more then a minute on the exam he could have performed better!

Next we click on Mr. Rochino's results and we see a little different outcome:

 

Avelino did slightly better overall which perhaps is a result of him taking an extra minute to complete the exam! 

The ability to get this information is good, but what can you do with it.  On that same screen there is an export option that will export the data from every student or engineer shown in this list.  It exports an excel file that gives you this data:

 

The nice thing is once you get data into Excel, you can do lots of things with it.  As the instructor of this class I would make a simple bar graph and see the results of my entire class in a single picture:

 

As the instructor I could put in an entire classes results and see exactly what areas of SolidWorks I would need to instruct on, based on this graph.  If I was doing this as a CAD manager I would call my VAR and set up a specialized training session based on the low scoring areas.

As for these two students, well I think sending them back to essentials for the time being may be the best bet possible!

If you have a SolidWorks Certification, head over to the Certification Center and make sure all your information is up to date, and be sure that you can log-in.  Later in the year, the user information in the Certification Center will be used to aid in registration for the CSWP event at SolidWorks World next year, and you don't want to be left out of that if you are planning to attend!

Look Ma, we're on the TV (with Fisher/Unitech & Terrafugia)

Here's a video Mike Puckett sent to me. It's a piece from the WDTN news in Dayton, Ohio talking about Fisher/Unitech's No Engineer Left Behind program. Kudos to Fisher/Unitech for helping, and stay tuned for details on our own SolidWorks Engineering Stimulus Package in the next few weeks.

And that's not all! For those of you who saw the flying car at SolidWorks World 2009 made by the guys at Terrafugia, well, they just made their maiden flight. Here's something from AVweb.com.They also made it to ABC News, but they don't offer up any embeddable video.

The "DOT it" Student Design Project

The winter in New England is especially cold, snowy, and icy this year. But for one day sunny warm day last week, I was fortunate enough to visit a small café in Cambridge, Massachusetts and sit with a group of students from MIT talking about their design project, the “DOT it” Braille Labeler.

Engineered by 15 MIT seniors, the “DOT it” team introduced the next generation of Braille label makers. The six button electromechanical device provides a more convenient solution to rotary dials and 26-button Braille typewriters. With the DOT it, the user inserts a roll of Dymo Tape and punches any combination of six keys to make the desired Braille character. The SolidWorks models and animation show how it works. Click here to see it in action.

The students were so excited to show me about their second prototype, because they are working to reduce the size by almost half with a more stylish cover.

I saw many great senior design projects at MIT this year. Perhaps I gravitated to the “DOT it” because, as an engineering professor for 10 plus years, the technology was so limited to help students who were visually impaired. The Braille movie and poster was shown in the education exhibition area at SolidWorks World.

SolidWorks Releases New Advanced Certification Exam

Last week at SolidWorks World 2009 in Orlando, the SolidWorks Certification Team released the new Advanced Surfacing Exam (CSWP-SURF). This is the third advanced topic exam released, and is available to individuals who have passed the CSWP-Core Modeling exam.

The new Advanced Surfacing exam covers a wide array of surfacing tools found inside SolidWorks including:

• Spline Creation
• Filled Surface
• Swept Surface
• Surface Trim
• Move Face
• Thicken
• Planar Surface

The new exam has a time limit of 90 minutes and requires a 75% passing grade.  More information about the exam can be found here, and a sample exam is available for download by following this link.  Those wishing to take the exam can purchase it for $19.95 here. The exam is self-proctored and requires an Internet connection for the duration of the exam, along with a working version of SolidWorks.  

Due to new functionality covered, it is recommended that SolidWorks 2008 Service Pack 3.1 or newer be used to complete the exam. It is also recommended that potential candidates complete the Advanced Surfacing Training Course offered by SolidWorks resellers.

If you need additional information about the Advanced Surfacing Exam, please contact certification@solidworks.com

SolidWorks EDU team participates in American Society Engineering Education EDGD Mid Year Conference

As I start my third year at SolidWorks, I want to share with you what the SolidWorks education team does to support educators and students around the world.

I just got back from the American Society of Engineering Education Engineering Design Graphics Division (ASEE-EDGD) mid year conference hosted by Dennis K. Lieu, UC Berkeley.  EDGD members provide guidance for teaching design and analysis at all levels.  http://www.me.berkeley.edu/edgd-midyear/

My computer had a hard drive crash.  First I panicked.  Luckily members of the UC Berkeley’s Formula SAE Race Car Team had three computers to set up and describe their project and talk about their engineering student experience. Check out the video:

This year I was amazed by the variety of engineering graphics presentations being explored.  William “Ed” Howard presented on his summer camp program at Eastern Carolina University that used SolidWorks to show high school student how to understand concepts in math and physics.  When you graph three equations and three unknowns in SolidWorks, you can truly see the one solution.  The mathematical result becomes more relevant than just solving equations on a 2d piece of paper. 

Ron Barr and Tom Krueger from the University of Texas presented on how their freshman students reverse engineer a physical product, dissect it into individual parts, measure and create sketches, build 3D solid models, apply analyses, make rapid prototypes, and produce an analysis reports and final drawings. 

Over two decades ago, Ron presented this concept at an EDGD meeting of what could be and now stated that reverse engineering in a teaching environment can now be extended deeper into design practices that will serve students in later engineering courses and in their professional career.

I've belonged to ASEE since 1994, but never have I seen so many students present at an EDGD meeting.  Students from Daniel Webster College, Manchester, NH presented on how their videos and assessments assist fellow students to create detail drawings that adhere to engineering standards.  In addition, juniors from the University of Wisconsin presented on how they provided supplemental training in SolidWorks to help freshman students learn about building quality prototypes – even though SolidWorks is not taught in the classroom, the FSAE team uses SolidWorks and requires students with these skills.

The last night of the conference is always exciting to see the awards.  Congratulations to this year’s Oppenheimer Award, Dr. Claus Putz, Institute of Geometry and Applied Mathematics, RWTH Aachen, Germany, given for his paper, Advanced Instructions – Facilitation of Individual Learning Processes in Large Groups.  I continue to be amazed by the educators who teach engineering graphics courses to 100’s of students at a time.