Learn . Create . Succeed

SolidWorks in Education featured at SolidWorks World 2012

Day 3 at SolidWorks World has always been student day.  We bring in high school students from the surrounding community.  This year we also highlighted the success of educators that work with us to bring innovative tools to their students. Ireland has trained over 1400 teachers which resulted in 142000 students that know core geometry and product design with SolidWorks.  Jack Van Der Broek from Vak College in the Netherlands has 800 students starting at age 10 that use SolidWorks in vocational technical school.

The education portion of Day 3 starts at approximately 15:00min .  The student design contest winners are announced, then student projects displayed at SolidWorks World are highlighted.  A big thank you goes to our educators, students, mentors, customers, resellers and partners that are all part of the SolidWorks educational community.  Finally I  interviewed the founder and CEO of Alderbaran-Robotics, Bruno Maisonnier,  on stage.  Just a great day to be part of the SolidWorks community.

 

 I am fortunate to work with an amazing team of education business professionals that do so much for their communities.  SolidWorks Education provides design and simulation software, curriculum and certification to help educators inspire their students in engineering, technology and science and to help students get the job ready skills for our SolidWorks commerical customers.

Thanks to affordable pricing and a professional community that needs graduates with SolidWorks skills, we have a great success in SolidWorks education:

• 1.25 million SolidWorks education licenses sold
• 80 countries
• Middle school, high school, technical vocation institutions, college, univerisity and university reasearch
• 2.5 million student everday use SolidWorks

 I programmed my first robot at Rutgers University with a microprocessor from an Apple II.  Standing on stage at SolidWorks World with 5600 engineers was one of the highlights of my career.  Marie

 

Robot CAD Tutorial in SolidWorks

Need a CAD tutorial to learn how to create a Robot model in SolidWorks?  It's competive robot season again and time to get prepared by understanding how to create and assemble parts in SolidWorks.

1. Start with best practices review our robot tutorials.

2. Download the Main Assembly 3D CAD model below and see the completed robot.

3. Customize SolidWorks with SolidWorks Resources>Add Folder Locations to have a library of parts to choose from.

4. Use your SolidWorks Customer Portal account to download other robot models for  Lego, Vex, Tetrix kits and projects to prepare for competitions. 

Main Assembly Model Files: Download Main Assembly

Video: Download Robot Competition FRC LEGO VEX FTC B

 

Mechanical Rocking Chair in SolidWorks

Form takes a bit of a backseat to function today as we explore a practical application of linkage design.  This linkage-operated (and motor-driven) rocking chair allows people with physical disabilities to experience the healing and comforting motion of a traditional “Boston” rocker.  Move the shortest link to see the chair rock. 

I used an assembly layout sketch to simulate the six-bar linkage (which I created using a compass and straightedge on paper) before modeling the device in a traditional assembly. This provided a quick confirmation that the linkage operated to my liking.

Thanks for viewing!

Dave Knight

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Mechanical Engineering, 2013

Download Rocking Chair Layout

Download Rocking Chair

Kinematics Tutorial: Finding Linkage Cognates with SolidWorks

Lately, I have been thoroughly enjoying learning about linkages, their motion, and their synthesis.  Anyone who has tried to find the cognates of a four-bar linkage may have noticed that the process is time-consuming and a bit tedious.

SolidWorks to the rescue!

SolidWorks makes it easy to build the Cayley diagram of a linkage, and subsequently move this diagram to find the cognates.  In theory, movement of links 2 and 4 to their designated positions will cause the cognates of the linkage to appear, and luckily, in this case, theory becomes reality. The different cognates are color coded:

 

This certainly makes life easier.  Thanks for viewing!

 

Dave Knight

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Mechanical Engineering, 2013

Download Roberts Linkage

 

SolidWorks Tutorial: Building a Robot Arena

You have seen Assabet Valley robot students featured on the SolidWorks TV series, Let's Go Design.  These students and their instructor, Bryant LaFlemme, have used SolidWorks to design the robot arena.

 

Then they built it for a National Robots League competition for New England.  There were competitions in other parts of the US.

 
But wait there is more, they put together a series of tutorial documents on how to create a robot arena for your school.  Thank you Assabet Valley Machine Shop for all your hard work and for sharing your design.  Download the files and begin with the "Arena Start Here" .pdf   Marie

Models and Plans:

Download SolidWorks Models and Arena Guides

SolidWorks Curriculum for Educators on the SolidWorks Customer Portal

SolidWorks provides curriculum, tutorials and projects for educators on our SolidWorks Customer Portal.

This video shows how you obtain your SolidWorks serial number, create an account and access the Customer Portal right inside of the SolidWorks Education Edition.

 
 
The projects are new for the 2011-2012 Education Edition.  Now the "Instructor's Guide to Teaching SolidWorks" and the "Student Guide to Learning SolidWorks" are available in 14 languages.  20 engineering design projects for students are found on the customer portal.

Students can access the workbooks and projects from within the Resources area under Student Curriculum or in the Design Library under SolidWorks Content.



Video: Download SolidWorks Curriculum LR

 

Robocon 2011 Finals

The Robocon 2011 Finals were last Friday. 

My colleague Christian, his two children and I got to attend, 

 

 I have to thank my other colleague Ryan and my intern Greg for helping out last week teach these students about SolidWorks and work through some FEA examples.  Enjoy the video - I loved the event.  Marie

 

 

Sabertooth Robotics gets ready for AUVSI and other Robotic Competitions

 

WPI's Sabertooth Robotics students are getting ready for colleagiate robot competitions including RICC (ricc.wpi.edu) on April 10 and AUVSI on August 16.

I was lucky to see their work unfold on their website and flickr photos and asked for an eDrawing to share with you.  Marie

eDrawing Download Sabertooth

 

Five Questions Friday: Senai Andai, student at University of Texas at Arlington

The following is reposted from the SolidWorks corporate blog

 

Name: Senai Andai

Title: Mechanical Engineering Student, Battlebots IQ Team founder

School: University of Texas at Arlington

Hometown: Dallas, Texas

 

1. Why do you choose to study engineering? How do you find yourself on this career path?
I was sitting in my 8^th grade English class when our teacher asked everyone what they wanted to do for a career. I hadn’t really given the question much thought in the past, but like a bolt of lightning, it hit me. I am going to be an engineer. I am going to design and build robotic vehicles, mechanical equipment and other devices for the engineering industry. It’s such a pure, childlike happiness for me. I knew it was a perfect match and I’ve never thought about another career since.

 

2. Why do you compete in robotics?
Robots are about the simplest and most diverse field in engineering, and give you a wide array of skills that include everything from electrical components, to part design and manufacturing, to programming. It encompasses most of the disciplines in engineering, yet allows you to focus the design of your robot to specialize in whatever you feel it will have the greatest application.

3. What’s your favorite moment?
Personally, the most important moments during robot season are not only the time during the competition when you’re in the heat of the battle and the pressure and excitement build, but also the little moments like back in lab at 3 a.m. when you and your teammates are busy CADing or manufacturing parts on your CNC. It’s all so much fun, so it’s hard to pick a favorite.

Also, winning the National High School Championship and later being ranked second among colleges doesn’t make choosing any easier. Ahhh, decisions, decisions.

  

4. What goal inspires you the most?
Our goal is simple. Build an indestructible robot that will kill everything. Sounds easy enough, but how do you do it?

In order to be indestructible, you have to have a great defense, but that usually means you sacrifice your offense. The opposite is also true. Challenging the impossible and pushing the known limits of the field has always been my goal, and we have a heck of a lot of fun incorporating that into these robots.

 

5. How has SolidWorks made a difference in your life?
SolidWorks is by far one of the most intuitive and useful pieces of software I have ever used. It is easy for beginners but has higher features for advanced users, like stress and flow analysis. It easily integrates with our other software and is one of the most stable programs I’ve ever used.

The running joke we have on our teams is “unlike other 3D CAD software, when you tell SolidWorks to do something, IT ACTUALLY DOES IT!” Unbelievable, growing up, we always thought software was supposed to be confusing and hard to use.

 

Bonus: What do you do for fun?Well, obviously building killer robots is fun. Did I mention we also attack printers, monitors and any other household items we hope will result in an explosion of parts? Just don’t use watermelon. Baaad idea. Trust me that one.

I’ve also built a hovercraft that is now sitting in my patio and being threatened by my parents to be thrown out. But the most fun I have is driving my family insane by taking anything and everything apart, promising I’ll put it back together, but never doing it. They’ve since learned to hide their electronics and appliances from me.

Robot Components 2011kop in SolidWorks for the First Robotics Competition

Thanks to my engineering intern Artem and our SolidWorks customers, we recreated over 125 parts and assemblies in native SolidWorks format based on SolidWorks 2010.

The complete Andy Mark Chassis was already posted both wide and long formats.

Artem has placed all these components in www.3DContentCentral.com so you can download them in neutral file formats - if required.  Marie

Download 2011kop-FRC-A