SOLIDWORKS World Product Showcase Preview: See Education Users in Action

The SOLIDWORKS World Product Showcase is the place to see the diverse projects brought to life by the best community in CAD. In the past we’ve seen everything from pinball machines to lunar landers and this year is no different. In our first preview, we introduced the robotics users and now we’ll take a look at our users in Education.

Keeping in the line with the SOLIDWORKS World 2017 theme of “The New, The Next, and the Never Before” we’re happy to feature projects build by SOLIDWORKS student teams (the Next), who will ultimately be responsible for creating the Never Before.

Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy:

Since 2002, the Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy (DPEA) in Golenta, Calif. has provided high school students with a real-world, interdisciplinary, project- and design-based learning approach that balances theory and application. Over the past 14 years, the DPEA has grown from one classroom of 32 students to 400 students in the state-of-the-art Elings Center for Engineering Education. There were only two women in the first class of 32 and the DPEA now has an enrollment that is more than 50 percent female.

Freshman through junior year, students rotate through four content areas: physics, CAD software and computer programming, machining and manufacturing, and visual arts with an emphasis on sculpture. Each year builds upon the previous one as projects become increasingly sophisticated.

The entire senior class of 100 uses SOLIDWORKS as the platform for their capstone project, Mechatronics. The project is designed to provide a comprehensive engineering experience, in which students work collaboratively with DPEA staff to design and fabricate installations and interactive exhibits that can be widely enjoyed at a number of public venues. This includes the kinematic games you’ll get to play at SOLIDWORKS World 2017.

How They Use SOLIDWORKS:

SOLIDWORKS Workgroup PDM allows DPEA staff to track and manage a senior class of roughly 100 students as they work collaboratively on large-scale projects and installations. This has allowed the DPEA to move from serial design to parallel design and allows large numbers of students who are working on similar assemblies to design new parts in concert with other design modifications.

UCLA Baja team

Bruin Racing’s Baja team https://uclaracing.org/baja/ competes annually in the Baja SAE Collegiate Design Series challenge. The goal of the competition is to create an off-road vehicle capable of withstanding the harshest elements and roughest terrain. Events test the design in acceleration, maneuverability, stability, and traction. Ultimately, the vehicles compete in a four-hour long endurance race.

How They Use SOLIDWORKS:
SOLIDWORKS is Bruin Racing’s primary CAD software. It’s used to model almost every part of each year’s vehicle. This includes the chassis, suspension and steering components, and gearbox components, etc. SOLIDWORKS assembly is used to model the integration of all the subsystem parts of the vehicle.

SOLIDWORKS Simulation add-on is used to simulate expected stresses in every critical part of the vehicle. This includes simulating the effects of impact on the suspension system, breaking on the brake rotors and the stress on the individual components within the gearbox during normal operation. Being able to rapidly design these vehicles from the ground up and rapidly model any changes during the year has been essential to Bruin Racing’s creation process.

UCLA Bruins Racing

The Formula SAE team at UCLA was founded in 2012 and has since built two vehicles competing in the Lincoln FSAE competition in 2014 and 2016. In 2016, we have merged together with the Baja SAE, Super mileage, and Hyperloop teams at UCLA to form the Bruin Racing, becoming one of the largest engineering organizations on campus.

The Bruin mk2, nicknamed Chicken Ranch, represents Bruin Racing Formula’s second car ever for the Formula SAE competition. Features include a Honda CRF 450X single cylinder engine with custom fuel injection, a Rekluse auto clutch, semiautonomous pneumatic shifting, custom student-built pedal box, and a custom wheel assembly.

How They Use SOLIDWORKS:

SOLIDWORKS is essential for designing and modeling the majority of the Formula SAE Vehicle, including the jigs needed to assemble the racecar. During the design process, Bruin Racing utilizes SOLIDWORKS to run finite-element analysis. Every major component of our vehicle has been modeled in SOLIDWORKS, so that the team can visualize structural components, systems integration and driver ergonomics. They are currently transitioning into a one-year cycle and are set to compete at Lincoln in the 2017 FSAE competition with a new vehicle build underway.

Now that you know a little bit about who you can meet, here’s where and when you can meet them:

Location:
The SOLIDWORKS World Product Showcase is located inside of the Partner Pavilion, South Hall of the LA Convention Center.

Hours:
Sunday: Welcome Reception/Gameday Party 4:30pm – 7:30pm
Monday: 11:30am – 4:30pm, Evening Reception: 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Tuesday: 11:30am – 4:30pm
Wednesday: 10:00am – 2:00pm

Don’t miss your chance to meet the future!