3 Must See Products at SOLIDWORKS World 2015

SOLIDWORKS World 2015 is now less than three weeks away! Everyone here at SOLIDWORKS has been working diligently to bring attendees the best experience yet. Personally, I’ve been involved with re-inventing an area of the show called Product Showcase this year. For those unfamiliar with what Product Showcase was in the past, it’s been an area where we have displayed customer products designed in SOLIDWORKS for attendees to look at and enjoy. This has always been a really cool part of SOLIDWORKS World, but it’s always felt a bit like an “Art Museum”; look but don’t touch.

This year however, we’re taking a completely different approach. Think “Children’s or Science Museum”, where every product on display begs to be engaged with in some way. That’s right, this year, every product in the Product Showcase at SOLIDWORKS World 2015 will have some sort of an interactive component to it. To give you an idea of what to expect, I wanted to take a look at three amazing products that we will be highlighting this year. In some cases, these products were not only designed in SOLIDWORKS, but they also work seamlessly with SOLIDWORKS, which provides a really unique experience to attendees.

MakerBot 3D Print Zone

If you’re reading this blog, chances are you already know who MakerBot is. But just in case, MakeBbot has been changing the landscape of the 3D Printing Industry the last few years with their extremely low cost of entry 3D Printers. The MakerBot Replicator is priced to be available to engineers and Makers everywhere to quickly create 3D Parts.

Featured in the Product Showcase this year, MakerBot will have 3 of their 5th Generation Makerbot Replicators, designed in SOLIDWORKS. Attendees will be able to quickly customize a luggage tag in SOLIDWORKS, and print it on the Replicator to attach to their luggage for the return trip home. So, if you’ve never seen how easy it is to print directly from SOLIDWORKS 2015 to a 3D Printer using the new PrintTo3D functionality introduced in SOLIDWORKS this year, I highly recommend checking this space out.

Parrot Drones

Just in case you were unaware, drones have become kind of a big deal lately. They range from everything from recreational toys, to high end photography tools.

This year at the SOLIDWORKS World Product Showcase, we thought it would be fun to fly a Parrot Rolling Spider or drive one of Parrot’s Jumping Sumo drones.

But after thinking about it for a while, that didn’t quite seem like enough. So we decided to take this interactive product display to a whole new level by creating an obstacle race course to challenge attendees flying and jumping skills!

That’s right, at SOLIDWORKS World’s Product showcase, you can walk up to our enclosed Drone Course and pick, up an iPad and race and fly with other attendees with either the Parrot Minidrone Rolling Spider through the skies, or the obstacles on the ground using the Parrot Minidrone Jumping Sumo!

Normandy Guitars

Do you know how to jam out an amazing guitar riff? Ever wanted to try or even learn how to play guitar? Jim Normandy, the owner of Normandy Guitars is hand-crafting two custom guitars designed in SOLIDWORKS for the SOLIDWORKS World Product Showcase this year.

We’re going to hook this beautiful Alumicaster with “Gotoh” tuners, Seymour Duncan “Quarter Pounder” pickups and solid brass, chrome plated “heavy knurled” knobs. Did I mentioned this thing is machined out of aircraft grade aluminum, yet weighs the same as a standard guitar? Plus, if the electric guitar isn’t your thing, he’s finishing a custom Bass as I write this.

You an one other attendee will be able to learn and play guitar side by side using on a video game called Rocksmith that guides you through the process of teaching you to play the guitar style of your choice, and quickly learns what you already know, increasing in difficulty.

As you can see, Product Showcase will offer an entirely different experience than ever before. And if you’ve never experienced SOLIDWORKS World, there’s still time to get there. SOLIDWORKS World 2015 takes place this year from February 8th – 11th at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, AZ. To learn more about the event, check out the link below.