Design
New on Born to Design: Auswall uses SolidWorks to develop mountain bikes—for skiing
The German engineers at Auswall combine industrial design, engineering, and ergonomics to create thrilling products. These specialties all matter when designing equipment, including a downhill mountain bike that folds into a backpack and can be used on skis or wheels.
... ContinuedPart One: 3D Printers and the Emergence of the Maker Movement
WIRED’s editor-in-chief Chris Anderson recently published a book suggesting that the Maker movement will likely transform the U.S. economy. Anderson believes that as the Maker movement gains momentum, the American spirit of tinkering and building will be re-tooled and made
... ContinuedHow the Equipois zeroG mechanical arm “lifts” workplace stress and fatigue
Manufacturers such as Honda, General Electric and Boeing use heavy power tools and equipment for their design and engineering needs. However, lifting these loads can cause worker fatigue and injury while decreasing productivity. To alleviate worker payload-associated stress and reduce
... ContinuedThere’s got to be a better way of creating owner’s manuals
There got to be a better way of owner’s manual! Here we are: Universal Cycles, a mountain bike producer in U.K. They print a QR code on their bike body leading to a Youtube assembly instruction video created in 3DVIA Composer by repurposing their CAD models for technical communication.
... ContinuedHow do I buy SolidWorks or get a trial version?
Here at SolidWorks, we work hard to make our products easy to buy, learn and use; however, two of the most common questions we receive are: How do I buy SolidWorks? How do I get a trial version of SolidWorks?
... ContinuedTo Infinity and Beyond: How SE Corp. Helped NASA using SolidWorks
Similar to Felix Baumgarnter’s contribution to the future of space travel, SE Corp., an analysis consulting firm, has enabled the use of the Kennedy Space Station for at least another 50 years. Using SolidWorks Flow Simulation, SE Corp. analyzed the
... ContinuedSolidWorks’ Users Ignite the 2012 MassChallenge Competition
The world is full of great ideas and MassChallenge is helping novice entrepreneurs make their ideas a reality. MassChallenge’s global accelerator program and startup competition is designed to give entrepreneurs the momentum needed to launch and succeed. Each year, through
... ContinuedCustomizing SolidWorks Flyout Toolbars
The other day while watching a video on some of the new SolidWorks 2013 features, I noticed that one of the Flyout Toolbars for Annotations had a command for Cosmetic Threads that I did not have in my Flyouts, so
... ContinuedNew on Born to Design: Franck Muller designs the world’s most complex watches with SolidWorks
Swiss-based luxury watchmaking company, Franck Muller, is known for making complex watches with hundreds, sometimes thousands of tiny moving parts. In an industry steeped in tradition and precision, see how SolidWorks® software is enabling their engineers to bring new innovations
... ContinuedThe Stratos Project: One Giant Freefall for Mankind
Look up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…it’s Felix Baumgartner breaking the skydiving world record from the edge of space. Today in Roswell, NM, the Red Bull Stratos project brought Baumgartner 128,120 ft above the earth
... ContinuedFender Musical Instruments Corporation Rocks at Guitar Production
Music legends such as Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Holly, and Kurt Cobain all have one thing in common aside from greatness: the Fender electric guitar. Offering a wide array 0f electric guitars such as the Stratocaster and
... ContinuedIntersect – The Trimming Shears of the FeatureTree
Like some advanced part and surfacing features, I’ve struggled to know when to use them. Recognizing when and how to use a feature can sometimes turn your part from a tangled FeatureTree mess to a nice efficient tree. I knew
... ContinuedChange Your Tree: See the Mates First!
Sometimes when working with an assembly, I am more interested in seeing the component mates than the component features. While I know I can expand a component in the FeatureManager tree and then expand the mates folder beneath it, I
... 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.
Rho, Rho, Rho Your Boat: Conics in SolidWorks 2013
SolidWorks 2013 introduces a sketch entity type that was once the soledominion of expensive Class-A surface modeling systems of yesteryear: The Conic Section. As I learned in 10th grade, if you take a cone and slice it with a plane,
... Continued