Education

Trip report: my SolidWorks User Group tour

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Trip report: my SolidWorks User Group tour

As you may recall from my earlier post, I spent the week of May 23 driving through the southeastern US with SolidWorks User Group Network coordinator Richard Doyle, attending user group meetings and visiting customers. It is always exciting to get out of the office and meet with SolidWorks users, and I learn something new every time. Rather than give you a day-by-day retelling of my trip, I thought I would talk about some of the highlights.

Each of the user group meetings was different and enlightening in different ways. The first meeting was in Atlanta, Georgia, and was held at the Quickparts headquarters. The second meeting in Greenville, South Carolina, was held at Clemson University. At this meeting, several resellers set up a display of 3D printers for the 70 attendees to demo, and SolidWorks customer Redneck Engineering brought out a few custom choppers. Here’s a picture of me sitting on one of them along with Vince “Nobody” Doll, who runs the company.

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Marie Planchard reflects on her teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week

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It is teacher appreciation week and a time to reflect on the teachers that have made a difference in so many lives – including my own.  First I have to thank my 7th grade math teacher, Sister Mary, who was the best math teacher I ever had.  Sister Mary was all about strengthening basic math skills in everything you do.  I used to talk in class, instead of the usual “I will not talk in class” 500 times.  Sister Mary had you take a 4 digit number and multiple it by itself and then subtract that number until you got down to zero.  Funny as your basic math gets stronger so does the algebra – but Sister Mary knew that.

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Taking the Certified SolidWorks Professional Test – Segment 1

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Taking the Certified SolidWorks Professional Test – Segment 1

In March I wrote about how I was challenged by blogger Matt Lorono to pass the Certified SolidWorks Professional (CSWP) test, and my promise to pass it by the day SolidWorks World 2012 begins. It has been a month since my first post, so I thought I would give an update to everyone.

If you’re not familiar with the CSWP, it’s broken up into three segments. So when Marie Planchard started helping me train, we focused on what I would need to know to pass the first segment. In this part, you have 90 minutes to

  • Create a part from a drawing
  • Use linked dimensions and equations to aid in modeling
  • Use of equations to relate dimensions
  • Update of parameters and dimension sizes
  • Mass property analysis
  • Modification of geometry on initial part to create a more complex part

In preparing for segment 1, I worked through the sample exam on the website.  After I created it the first time, Marie worked with me to make the design again and showed me where I could save time. For example, Geometric Relations, Linked Values for sketch dimensions and Equations really help. In the CSWP exam, the part was not difficult – but you have to work fast.   

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Celebrating the Patron Saint of…Engineering?

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Celebrating the Patron Saint of…Engineering?

In my short tenure at SolidWorks I have learned that more things are connected to engineering than I ever thought possible. Take St. Patrick’s Day. I could tell you about all the beer mugs or beer taps or Irish products designed with SolidWorks, but that would be expected. But, did you know that the patron saint of Ireland is also considered the patron saint of engineering?

It’s at the bottom of the Wikipedia listing, hidden among the ways in which different cities celebrate. An engineering college in Rolla, Missouri has been celebrating St. Patrick, the legendary snake chaser, for the past week – in fact, the past century. After a little digging, I found out that the Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) is one of our customers, and gave them a call.

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National Pi Day: A True Holiday for Engineers

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National Pi Day: A True Holiday for Engineers

So I’ve just found out it's National Pi Day here in the States because they write today's date as 3/14 rather than 14/3. I guess that means Pi Day back in Europe should be July 22nd (22/7).  It's a somewhat serendipitous event, as I'm analyzing an assembly which is a mass of screw thread, spheres and cyclic mechanism.  When you stop and think about it, pretty much the whole of engineering is built upon that two-letter constant. 

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