Launching The New Model Mania 3DEXPERIENCE Challenge
Two Model Mania® challenges were held at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2020 in Nashville, and I had the honor of introducing the new 3DEXPERIENCE Challenge. If you don’t know what Model Mania is, check out this article first. If you’re looking for the 21st year of the SOLIDWORKS Challenge, you can find it here. In this blog, I will share how I deployed a controlled and repeatable environment that made it easy for users to deliver measurable results and how I used the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to set up, distribute and measure the new Model Mania challenge.
Setting Up The Challenge
For the setup, it was all about dashboards and data.
Dashboards on the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform enable you to build a collection of information from diverse sources. For the challenge, this included an overview of the challenge, official rules, detailed instructions, the necessary design tools, a library of 3D models, and an area in which to provide feedback. I used tabs in the dashboard to separate these different areas. Depending on the level of experience of the participant, they were able to consume and use the right amount of information by going to the tabs of interest.
An optional part of the challenge was to add the newly created part to a preexisting assembly. This assembly was made available to everyone from the shared collaborative space. A bookmark was also available to make sure it was clear which assembly was the right one.
This dashboard had everything necessary to make a successfully entry in the challenge, but do you have to repeat the steps of setting it up for every participant?
Distributing The Challenge
At the Model Mania booth in the 3DEXPERIENCE Playground, we had four computers set up for the challenge. Each computer used a unique account to the platform. When you have a dashboard that has value for multiple users, you may share that dashboard. This meant that as the administrator, I had no software to install or additional user configuration. I just had to open the web browser and log in as each user. That’s it.
Sharing a dashboard can be done in a few different ways in terms of permissions. In this case, I did not want participants to change the environment. I shared the dashboard with the four accounts with reader permissions. This ensured that every participant would have the same experience. However, some participants did create their own dashboards and accomplish the same task. Dashboards provide this flexibility, and we had a quick and easy way to equip new participants.
When a participant was ready to share the result of their cloud CAD modeling skills, they used the dashboard to publish an image of their model to the 3DEXPERIENCE World 2020 Community. This is where the community would decide the winners.
Measuring The Challenge
All of the measuring was done with the 3DSwym Community and made my job extremely easy. At the end of the contest duration, winners were determined by the number of likes on their image.
To view all of the challenge entries and winners, go to the 3DEXPERIENCE World 2020 Community. You can log in with your SOLIDWORKS ID or create a 3DEXPERIENCE ID if you don’t have one already.
Here you can do the same filtering I did to discover the most liked posts.
In the launch of the new Model Mania 3DEXPERIENCE Challenge, we used many tools that the platform has to offer, including dashboards to organize information and tools, collaborative spaces to store and share data, communities for social engagement and the search and filtering tools to reveal the winners.
Discover more about these roles and apps on the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform and sign up for a free trial at www.solidworks.com/transform.