Learn . Create . Succeed

French Students Excel in STEM Education with Support from SolidWorks VAR CadWare

Before Science, Technology, Education and Math (STEM) became a well used acronym in US education, French students learned to use SolidWorks as a visualization tool in order to understand concepts in simple machines, laws of physics, mathematics, and how things work.  In middle school and high school usually there is not a SolidWorks CAD class directly, instead students use SolidWorks to explore areas of science and technology.  Now SolidWorks is used for the national Baccalauréat (or BAC), the french high school exam required for post secondary studies.   At the university level, engineering students with this strong modeling and analysis background excel in competitions.  For example, the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Technologies Industrielles des Mines d'Alès won the most sustainable design prize at both the 2011 French and European Shell Eco Marathon. 

With over 5,500 middle schools and over 2,200 technical and vocational schools, training centers, engineering schools and Higher Education and Universities, SolidWorks French Value Added Reseller, CADWARE is a major partner for educational institutions for modeling software and 3D simulation used in classrooms and for construction technology.

Thank you Jean Luc and your team for helping so many students and educators achieve their goals.  Marie

 

Ballpoint Pen in SolidWorks

This pen was a fun assembly to model. For the most part, it was quite an easy job. The only challenging part was the cap, and I was able to complete it using a loft feature, a mirror feature, and plenty of fillets. Suppress the distance mate to remove the cap. Enjoy the model, and thanks for viewing!

Dave Knight

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Mechanical Engineering, 2013

Download Pen

SolidWorks Mentor Races with STEM Education Tutorial and the Ten80 Challenge

When Jeremy Losaw, NASCAR Racing Engineer and SolidWorks Mentor for the Ten80 STEM Racing Challenge sent me this video, I could not help but ask to share it with all of you. 

 

Jeremy also sent me the part model he created in SolidWorks. 

You can download the SolidWorks model. Download Mini

Jeremy learned SolidWorks 98 at Union College and was a member of the FSAE team.  I love SAE collegiate events.  SolidWorks sponsors  the SAE events and I have learned a great deal from these young student engineers, especially as we developed our SolidWorks SAE curriculum with the University of Wisconsin FSAE racing team.

.Jeremy is the perfect mentor, he has worked in designing carbon fiber machines to NASCAR Racing parts.  Jeremy's outreach goes beyond the middle school and high school students too.  He helps out for the Clemson FSAE Racing team in his free time.  Marie

STEM - Science Technology Engineering and Math is truly integrated into the Ten80 Racing Challenge.   This project makes physics and math exciting and fun.

 With mentors like Jeremy and support from the US Army and NASCAR, Ten80 is certain to drive students towards science and engineering.  Marie

Fire Extinguisher

For today's post I decided to make a fire extinguisher.  This was a really fun project to build.  I was not sure exactly sure how the inside of the fire extinguisher worked but with some research and some designing on my end this is what I came up with.  My idea is there is a CO2 canister that when the handle is squeezed it punctures the canister releasing the CO2.  This then compresses the fluid that is in the can.  When the handle closes this also open a value.  The extinguishing liquid travels up the tube and out towards the fire.  The tank was created using a revolve feature as the entire part was symmetrical about the vertical axis.   The top of the extinguisher was created using a number of extrusions and a swept feature for the threads.  This part was rather fun to make as there were a lot of different contours and cuts that I needed to make so that it would be functional.  The hose on the inside and outside were both created using sweeps with the thin option.  This allowed me to create just the outside profile and then set the thickness that I wanted for the entire tube.  Another part that was a challenge was the part that connected the CO2 canister as well as the inner hose.  This part needed to have ports that would let the CO2 out as well as a hole for the hose.  The ports were created using a revolved cut so that they would be tangent to the dome on the inside of this part.  The dome was made so that the escaping CO2 gas would be channeled out through these ports.  I included a section view of the model so that you would be able to see the inside.  Feel free to download the model and take a closer look.  Enjoy!

 

Ian Jutras

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Mechanical Engineering 2013

Download Fire Extinguisher

Fire Sprinkler with Flow Simulation with SolidWorks - Revised

For this post, I decided to take the fire sprinkler that I posted on December 18^th and run a flow simulation with it.  In order to do this I first had to suppress the glass tube that would hold the water back.  This simulates the heat from a fire expanding the liquid inside and breaking the glass.  Before being able to run the simulation I needed to make a containment part around the head of the sprinkler and also put a lid on the open end by the threads.  This was done in order to run the analysis as an internal flow.  To set up the actual simulation I first set up the computational domain so that it was a little larger then my whole assembly.  For the general settings I set the analysis type to internal, the fluid to water, and left the rest of the settings to their defaults.  From there, I needed to set up my boundary conditions.  These specify what the input and outputs to the system are.  For the input of the system, I selected the inside face of the lid and used a static pressure that was in a normal direction to the lid.  I then selected the internal faces of the containment part and set those to the environmental pressure which I left set to the default.  I also set the faces that were in the direct line parallel to the lid as an ideal wall.  From there I meshed and ran the simulation.  Once it had finished solving I inserted a flow trajectory using the internal face of the lid with 500 points showing the pressure of the water.  This is seen in the image above.  The result has some abnormalities that aren’t what I expected  but that could be caused by how I set up the simulation.  I hope you enjoy.

 

Ian Jutras

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Mechanical Engineering 2013

Download Fire Sprinkler with simulation

 

SolidWorks Brazilian Blog Hosts Contest for Students and Teachers

SolidWorks Brazilian Blog http://solid3d.blogspot.com/ celebrates its 1 year anniversary with a great promotion for Brazilian students and teachers.  With over 1 million views, solid3d.blogspot.com is the creation of SENAI educator José Cardoso Junior.

Follow the link Promotion: http://solid3d.blogspot.com/2012/01/promocao-1-ano-de-blog.html

These are the prizes:

1st Place:

1 license of SolidWorks Student Edition 2011-2012
1 Credit for the CSWP certification;
1 Credit for a CSWA certification;
1 essential ODL Course SolidWorks (donated by IST systems);
1 Mouse Pro 3DConnection SpaceMouse;
1 Pen of SolidWorks;
1 cap of SolidWorks.

2nd Place:

1  license of SolidWorks Student Edition 2011-2012;
1 Credit for the CSWP certification;
1 Credit for a CSWA certification;
1 ODL Course Level 1 SolidWorks (donated by SKA);
1 Pen of SolidWorks;
1 cap of SolidWorks.

3rd Place:

1 license of SolidWorks Student Edition 2011-2012;
1 Credit for the CSWP certification;
1 Credit for a CSWA certification;
1 Pen of SolidWorks;
1 cap of SolidWorks.

As a technical vocational teacher ifor over 10 years, Jose creates great tips, models, and videos on his blog.  Also, his site contains information of the SolidWorks Certification exams: Certified SolidWorks Associate (CSWA), Certified SolidWorks Professional (CSWP) and Certified SolidWorks Expert (CSWE).   Qualified SolidWorks schools on subscription, may apply to become a CSWA provider at www.solidworks.com/cswa.  The CSWA exam is given in Brazilian Portuguese and 10  other languages.

Oi! I don't speak Brazilian Portuguese, but translate.google.com does a good job.  Luckily my daugther's engineering boyfriend is from Brazil and confirmed this translation tool for me.

Congratulations Jose for a great blog and thank you for helping out so many students, teachers and the SolidWorks Brazilian community.  Marie

SolidWorks Expands the Science Fair to Amazing Products

Students use SolidWorks to visualize great ideas for Science Fairs and Technology Fairs.   But former high school science fair winner,  Ben Gullak has taken his winning project into amazing products to start his own company, BPG-Werks  in just a few years.   The UNO, an electric scooter, was named one of the top 10 inventions of 2008 by Popular Science magazine.

Last year, at SolidWorks World 2011, Ben presented his BPG shredder.  Before the event started, the BPG shredder was positioned on the stage.  I introduced Ben to  Bernard Charles, President of Dassault Systemes.  When Bernard asked, "how does it work?", Ben immediately opened his ipad to show beautiful photo realistic images created in SolidWorks.  For some reason - conference centers don't like it when you start up power vehicles.

Ben has become a great example of what students can do with innovation and creativity. Sometimes you need cool examples for your classroom.   His story is explored in this case study.  Marie

 

Fire Sprinkler with Flow Simulation

For this post, I decided to take the fire sprinkler that I posted on December 18^th and run a flow simulation with it.  In order to do this I first had to suppress the glass tube that would hold the water back.  This simulates the heat from a fire expanding the liquid inside and breaking the glass.  Before being able to run the simulation I needed to make a containment part around the head of the sprinkler and also put a lid on the open end by the threads.  This was done in order to run the analysis as an internal flow.  To set up the actual simulation I first set up the computational domain so that it was a little larger then my whole assembly.  For the general settings I set the analysis type to internal, the fluid to water, and left the rest of the settings to their defaults.  From there, I needed to set up my boundary conditions.  These specify what the input and outputs to the system are.  For the input of the system, I selected the inside face of the lid and used a static pressure that was in a normal direction to the lid.  I then selected the internal faces of the containment part and set those to the environmental pressure which I left set to the default.  I also set the faces that were in the direct line parallel to the lid as an ideal wall.  From there I meshed and ran the simulation.  Once it had finished solving I inserted a flow trajectory using the internal face of the lid with 500 points showing the pressure of the water.  This is seen in the image above.  The result has some abnormalities that aren’t what I expected  but that could be caused by how I set up the simulation.  I hope you enjoy.

 

Ian Jutras

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Mechanical Engineering 2013

Download Fire Sprinkler with simulation

 

Mechanical Ice Cream Scoop in SolidWorks

I came across this ice cream scoop in my kitchen and couldn't resist modelling it. It is complete except for the torsion spring that adds tension to the lever. I did not model the spring because I did not want to complicate the assembly and prevent movement.  Otherwise, through use of fillets and a gear mate, this assembly looks quite accurate.  Thanks for viewing!

Dave Knight

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Mechanical Engineering, 2013

Download Ice Cream Scoop 

Snow Shovel

In the spirit of winter I decided to make something that is familiar to everyone who has experienced snow; a shovel.  This is your classic shovel with a plastic handle and bucket and a wooden shaft.  For the handle, I used the loft feature with a center line in order to design the curves.  I was going to use a sweep but I wanted the base to be thicker then the upper part of the handle.  This did not work as well as I had hoped because the curve ended up being thinner than I expected.  To reinforce the handle, I created some ribs along the inside curves.  I used the rib feature to create the grips on the underside of the handle.  I used a number of extrudes to get the main contours of the shovel bucket.  For the strengthening ridges on the shovel I used a sweep feature as well as a boss extrude.  This had the condition up to next in order to get the sweep to taper away into the main part of the bucket.  I hope you enjoy this shovel and use it with your imaginary snow.  Happy Holidays!

 

Ian Jutras

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Mechanical Engineering 2013

Download Snow Shovel