The SolidWorks Blog

A conversation with Aldebaran Robotics' Bruno Maisonnier

I have a little boy who just turned four. He's loved robots since he was 18 months old, and somewhere between two and three years old, he started asking to watch videos of vintage tin robot toys on YouTube. But watching wind-up toys roll around gets tiring after a while, so at some point, I started looking for videos of real robots. One of the best ones I came across was from a company called Aldebaran Robotics. Their NAO robots were cute, they moved like people, and talked to one another. It became on of my son's favorites.

A few months ago, our CEO Bertrand Sicot told me that he was visting the company in Paris, and that they were a customer. I thought that was pretty cool, and it was only shortly afterward that Marie Planchard told me that she would be presenting with them at SolidWorks World 2012. You may have already seen their presentation on our YouTube channel.

One of the most interesting things about Aldebaran is that they are working with a number of schools and researchers on ways that robots can be incorporated into different therapies. For example, Aldebaran is working with a group using robots to help autistic children. In some situations, it's easier for autistic children to interact with robots than people due to their predictable range of responses, non-threatening appearance, and comfort with repetition.

Shortly after his presentation at SolidWorks World, I took a few minutes to sit down with company founder Bruno Maisonnier to talk about his company and its mission (and also to tell him how much my son wants one of his robots). You can see it here. Where do you see the future of robotics heading? Let us know in the comments section below.

Announcing the Winner of the SolidWorks World Flickr Scavenger Hunt!

On Saturday, February 12^th we announced that SolidWorks World attendees would have a chance to win an Apple iPad 2 by taking pictures of 17 different items or locations at the event and uploading them to Flickr. It was extremely close, but Patrick O’Hern (aka Bowtie_Bob on Flickr) posted his pictures in record time and has been named the winner! We would also like to recognize Cindy Berend, who Patrick beat to the punch by a mere 2 minutes.

Congratulations Patrick and thank you to all who participated!

SolidWorks World 2012 - Day 3 General Session Video #sww12

SolidWorks World 2012 - Day 3 General Session Update #sww12

Today is the last day of SolidWorks World 2012, and it's been great so far. Everyone had a great time at last night's block party. Today kicked off with Mark Schneider announcing the winners of this year's Model Mania contest. Congratulations to Neil Custard of SolidWorksTips.com for winning the user division, and to Mike Spens of GoEngineer for winning the reseller division.

That led straight into What's New for SolidWorks 2013. This year the team came up with a sort of "Back to the Future" theme, featuring SolidWorks founder Jon Hirschtick. Some of the enhancements that got the most enthusiastic response were previous release interoperability, variable pattern instances and the ability to insert multiple parts. Be on the lookout for these when SolidWorks 2013 goes into beta later this summer.

We then announced this year's top-ten list, which was brought to us by students from Assabet Valley Technical High School, and reads like this:

1. Start using more CPU cores

2. Mass properties should include the option to automatically put a point at the center of gravity

3. Don't delete your children, dangle them instead

4. Address "shaded with edges bleed through" issue

5. Reduce the bounding box of drawing views to visible components only

6. Ability to control a plane's front & back side orientation

7. Dimensions should stay where you place them

8. Escape key should immediately return control of the interface

9. Add "lock rotation" option to cylindrical mates

10. Add a "thread creation wizard"

Marie Planchard then introduced us to French customer Aldebaran Robotics, which is doing some amazing work, including using robots for therapeutic purposes. They talked about the evolution of Aldebaran Robotics, the SolidWorks skill sets of the company’s designers and how founder Bruno Maisonnier forged his professional path through technology and education.

Bruno also detailed how robotics can perform therapy for the disabled in a way that humans can’t. The secret is the way that robots interact and respond to patient needs and communication—a true illustration of the influence of technology.

And before closing out the day, Bertrand Sicot returned to announce the date and location of next year's SolidWorks World, which will be in Orlando, Florida from January 20 – 23, 2013.

That's it for this year. Thanks for following along, and check back in later for the video.

SolidWorks World 2012 - Day 2 General Session Video #sww12

As promised, here's footage from today's session.

SolidWorks World 2012 - Day 2 General Session Update #sww12

We kicked the day off with a recap of Monday night's final CSWP party on the USS Midway, followed by Richard Doyle handing out awards for the SolidWorks User Group Network.

According to Richard, 2011 was another really good year for SolidWorks User Groups with another 21 local chapters joining the network.  SolidWorks User Groups are now in 44 U.S states, 5 Canadian provinces, and 27 other countries around the world.  From Los Angeles California to Tangerang City Indonesia, the SolidWorks User Group Network extends to all corners of the world.

The award for the User Group of the Year went to the New Hampshire SolidWorks User Group, managed by Cindy Berend, John Blutt and Hoang Bao.

Rachel York of the Tech Valley SolidWorks User Group won the User Group Leader of the Year award.

And SolidWorks forum MVP Charles Culp won the Michelle Pillers SWUGN Community Award for achievement in the SolidWorks community above and beyond the call of duty. Congratulations to all of the winners.

We then had two special guests join us on stage. First, the Howe brothers, Mike and Geoff, (of Black Ops Brothers fame) came up and told the story of how they started their design careers at eight years old: with a four-foot-tall, handcrafted cabin in their backyard, built to top their friends’ forts. And this began their design philosophy of making everything they build bigger and badder, culminating in the Ripsaw. Ripsaw is a developmental light tank that can hit 60 mph in four seconds, and the brothers described design challenges resulting from the weight, size and speed of the vehicle, which they took on one by one until the design was perfected.

Howe & Howe’s latest project, a hydraulic arm designed for firefighters, was designed and rendered in SolidWorks in a single day. The project went from idea to fabrication in just nine days, proving that with the right approach, design can move incredibly quickly.

The key takeaways from the Howe brothers: solve problems one at a time and remember that design is about opportunity.

Next Ben Kaufman from Quirky gave us all a lesson in collaborative design. Ben pointed out that invention is a trait inherent to all people—even a reflex—rather than a learned skill, and one that we all need to nurture.  Quirky has chosen to nurture it through collaboration, and invites people to submit ideas for community feedback. Each week, two inventors are crowned to bring their product to fruition, and Quirky also introduces two new products to the market each week. This methodical, sustainable approach to building a pipeline of consumer products has paid off for Quirky, the inventors it supports and the members of the Quirky community, through Quirky’s unique business model.

Ben’s bottom line is that invention should be accessible, and collaboration is changing the face of design forever. Since community is such an important part of SolidWorks and the design process, we can’t wait to see what’s next.

That's it for today. Check back later for footage.

SolidWorks World 2012 - Interview with Mike Rowe #sww12

Yesterday morning Mike Rowe, host of Discovery's Dirty Jobs, appeared on the SolidWorks World stage for a presentation. Solidworks's own Darren Henry had a chance to catch up with Mike backstage and ask a few questions. So without further ado, here you go.

SolidWorks World 2012 - Day 1 General Session Video #sww12

Earlier today, I promised you general session video. So here it is!

Enter to win a Nest Learning Thermostat #sww12

Tony Fadell, head of Nest, joined us today to keynote SolidWorks World 2012. Tony was nice enough to bring along a brand new Nest Learning Thermostat and offered it to us. If you're not familiar with it, the Nest thermostat includes software that learns how you live in your house, and programs itself to run your HVAC systems more efficiently. It can also connect to your home WiFi network, so you can program or adjust it from any computer or smartphone. If you would like a chance to win one for your own home, here's your chance.

As you may recall, SolidWorks World was last held in San Diego back in 2008. In that year, the most popular names in the US for new babies were Aiden and Emma. How many people who attended SolidWorks World in 2008 were named Aiden or Emma?

The person who guesses the right answer (or comes closest to it) will win a Nest Learning Thermostat. One guess per person, please. You have between now and 8:00 PM EDT on Wednesday, February 15 to enter. We'll pick and announce a winner on the morning of February 16.

Of course there are restrictions, which you'll find in the complete rules included below. So make sure you read them. In a nutshell, you're not eligible if you're a SolidWorks employee, or you work for a SolidWorks reseller or SolidWorks solution partner. The contest is void in Brazil, Quebec, China, and where otherwise prohibited or restricted by local or national law.

Download Nest Learning Thermostat Contest Terms and Conditions

SolidWorks World 2012 - Day 1 General Session Update #sww12

The first general session of SolidWorks World 2012 ended just a little while ago, and there’s a lot to talk about. We should have some video for you a little later this afternoon, but for now, here’s a quick recap of what went on here in San Diego this morning.

CEO Bertrand Sicot was introduced by a Nao robot from Aldebaran, and started out talking about the size of the SolidWorks community, which has reached 1.7 million members. To put that into perspective, if all of those users formed a new city, it would be the 5^th largest in U.S.—larger than Philadelphia. If all 1.7M users formed a new country, it would rank #150 in size out of 235 countries existing today. That’s a lot of people.

Bertrand went on to talk about how everyone in the SolidWorks community is united by the concept of design, with product design being a constant in all aspects f our lives. He used Dan Herzberg as an example. If you don’t know Dan, he learned SolidWorks at WPI, interned at SolidWorks in 2009, and is now professional engineer and SolidWorks user group leader in Virginia.

Last year, Dan had surgery to replace a defective valve in his heart. Before the surgery, Dan learned that the valve being implanted in his body was made by On-X Life Technologies, a new SolidWorks customer. Most people with artificial heart valves spend the rest of their lives taking blood thinning medication. But the team at On-X has paid a lot of attention to the way the blood flows, and they believe their unique design will reduce or completely eliminate the need for blood thinners in the near future. Today marks six months since Dan’s surgery, and he joined us in the audience.This is an amazing example of one user’s life being saved by another user’s design.

Shortly after, the first guest of the day came out to talk—Mike Rowe from Discovery’s Dirty Jobs. Mike talked about the growing skills gap in the US, and focused heavily on the need for education in trades. Stay tuned for a special interview with Mike later today.

Bertrand came back to talk about the role if innovation at SolidWorks, highlighting the R&D team and the ways that they remain focused on SolidWorks’ core principle of focusing on the end user. He also announced that we recently reached a new milestone of 50,000 Certified SolidWorks Associates, Professionals and Experts.

We were also joined by Dassault Systèmes CEO Bernard Charles, as well as Dr. Maia Hoeberechts from NEPTUNE Canada. NEPTUNE is the world’s first underwater observatory network.  It includes more than 130 instruments and 400 sensors in the northern Pacific, linked by over 500 miles of cable—all connected to the Internet and constantly collecting data. This data is available freely to a community of researchers around the world, twenty-four hours a day. The public can also take part and make discoveries, and this combination of professional and hobbyist research is leading to new insights about the ways in which our oceans work.

The session ended with a keynote presentation from Tony Fadell, considered by some to be “the father of the iPod.” Tony talked about the early days of designing the iPod and arguments with Steve Jobs over Windows compatibilty, and also focused heavily on the challenges of managing a global 100-person start-up. He also talked about the process of founding his new company, Nest, and how they went about designing and selling the world's first learning thermostat.

Well, that’s it for today. Check back later for the Mike Rowe interview and session video. See you tomorrow!