Author Archives: Stephen Endersby
SWMC: A Message from the Coal Face on Working in the Cloud
The last blog on the SOLIDWORKS Mechanical Conceptual Lighthouse customers’ feedback is focusing on the aspect of working on the cloud. Read part one to learn about the conceptual design process. Read part two to hear how customers are using
... ContinuedSWMC: A Message from the Coal Face on Social Collaboration
Last week’s blog discussed how the SOLIDWORKS Mechanical Conceptual Lighthouse customers were designing and innovating faster than ever before using SOLIDWORKS Mechanical Conceptual. Today we will hear how Social Collaboration is transforming the way they design their products. Romain Gaillet,
... ContinuedSWMC: A Message from the Coal Face on Concept Design
Since the announcement at SOLIDWORKS World 2014 there has been a lot of information about SOLIDWORKS Mechanical Conceptual coming from SOLIDWORKS Corp…now I am not saying we are biased but there’s another more neutral source of information on SOLIDWORKS Mechanical
... ContinuedSOLIDWORKS Simulation Zombie Apocalypse Survival Kit
Have you ever wondered what you would do to save yourself from the zombie apocalypse? I know I have. Do you get in a car and drive to the country, stay in your house or jump on a sail boat
... ContinuedWorld Cup: Simulating Stadium Foot Traffic in SOLIDWORKS
Have you ever watched a large group of people on the move? From on high you can see the people moving around obstacles, creating pools of stationary traffic and choke points where the traffic slows to a crawl before accelerating
... ContinuedEnable Innovation with SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual
The Challenge of Mechanical Concept Design Design innovation drives business success, and innovation is all about designers asking “what if” during the concept phase of product design. Almost 1/3 of the total product development time is spent in the concept
... ContinuedClimbing Ladders With SolidWorks: Don’t Just Stress About Strength
I love this time of year in New England–the weather, apple picking, the colors as the leaves turn. But what I don’t love is the half a trillion leaves that fall into my garden that I then have to blow/rake
... ContinuedMaximize your punkin’ chunkin’ catapult with SolidWorks Simulation
Have you ever wondered how far you could throw a
pumpkin? No? Me neither. However, a lot of people not only give this significant thought, they also meet in a big field to test their weird and wonderful contraptions
at the Punkin' Chunkin' World Championships.
In a nutshell, teams compete to see how far they can launch
a pumpkin by catapult, trebuchet, or air cannon. I first learned about this weird and wonderful completion a while ago, and I
decided that rather than build my own physical catapult and test it, I would do the smart thing–build and test it in SolidWorks first. Now, I
didn’t want to spend a ton of time creating a detailed model to test; I just wanted
a quick and dirty model that I could use to test my design hypothesis and make some initial determinations, namely:
- What beam sections to use on the design?
- Where to put the arm stop?
- What are the impact stresses?
- How far would the pumpkin go?
So my first design was quite basic, but it still had enough
detail to provide meaningful design data. This is a really important point for any design analysis: analyze early and often to get the
maximum benefit.
An engineer—and SOLIDWORKS Plastics—on the beach
A couple of weeks ago I spent a very pleasant week down in Fort Lauderdale, and while enjoying a drink with far too many bits of fruit and umbrellas for me to be completely comfortable, I found myself looking over
... ContinuedPlaying The Hunger Games with SolidWorks Simulation
If you have children of a certain age, then right now your life is all about Katniss Everdeen and The Hunger Games. If you don’t know the story, essentially it’s about a sixteen year old girl trying to survive a
... ContinuedSupersonic Sky Diving with SolidWorks Simulation
I have been reading about Felix Baumgartner’s attempt on the world skydiving altitude record, held for the last 50 years by Joseph Kittinger. Felix plans to jump from a gondola attached to a helium balloon at 120,000ft (or 36,500 meters),
... ContinuedYou Can’t Prototype This: The Power of Mechatronic Design
Yesterday I took the family to the airport for their semiannual flight back to the UK to visit friends and family. And as I watched the luggage go down the conveyor belt I started to wonder what went on behind
... ContinuedUltimate Igloos and Cool Engineering
Last year, a former colleague at SolidWorks built himself an igloo, and my children deemed it ‘totally awesome’ and demanded one. I never managed to finish that particular project, but the thought of building an igloo has never really gone
... ContinuedBend It Like a Football Star – With SolidWorks Simulation
Watching my son play indoor 6-a-side football (or soccer, as some of you might call it), is both an exhilarating and nerve-racking experience. The father in me wants him to enjoy ‘the beautiful game,’ the competitor in me wants him
... ContinuedThe Leaning Tower of…Parliament?
As an Englishman, there are certain things that one expects to remain constant: There will always be a royal family; The summer sun will shine as England plays cricket at Lords; Big Ben will chime every hour, every day. So
... Continued