\nI first started using this magnificent application, I found a great and
\nalmost immediate joining together (mind meld) of this program and my
\nmind. Wow I thought, now I have a digital tool that I can use to draw whatever my mind could conceive. This is a true statement. However,
\nin my rush to draw those things that I had locked up in my mind for so
\nmany years, I did not pay too much attention to the tools that <\/span>SolidWorks<\/span> gives to you to bring out that creativity in all of us. So
\nafter learning the basics I jumped right in and tried to do that
\nprofessional stuff, only to end up against a brick wall and bloodied. I
\nlost hours of my valuable time, when I should have slowed down to study
\nmore fully those marvelous tools that the program has built in. This is especially important to those of us that do now see well. The tool that I speak of can be invaluable to successfully sketching out those ideas that later on become parts and assemblies. Engineers refer to a keyword \u201cKISS\u201d many times when building projects. That translates like this: \u201cKeep It Simple Stupid.\u201d Now, that is something I can relate to. I like simplicity when I design things. Here is an example of what I am talking about that I drew awhile back.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \n \n \n It was very simple to conceive the idea but it took me forever to get what I wanted digitally. I tried to duplicate regular printing paper in size and physical characteristics. That part was easy to do in the picture above on those flat parts of this project. What was hard to do is the piece down below because I did not utilize <\/span>SolidWorks\u2019<\/span> amazing tool called <\/span>Offset Entities<\/span>. Take a look down below. Once again that part is easy to do even for a blind man like me. However, trying to draw parallel lines to the first geometry drove me nuts. Perhaps you could do it with good techniques, good eyes and some tricks you know. However, my extrusion attempts of this geometry failed time and time again. I knew what it was that had to be done but how does one do this easily like the pros out there? The right answer here is to let someone else do it, right? Finally it dawned on me that what I needed was an offsetting tool from my originally drawn <\/span><\/span>geometric lines. Well son of a gun, <\/span>SolidWorks<\/span> gave us one but I had never used it before because I was rushing into my creativity mode. The screen shot down below was easy enough to construct but you cannot extrude a line. It must be an enclosed geometry.<\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n As Now the big question on everyone\u2019s mind is what is this thing and what good is it? Fair question and here is the answer. A single piece of paper by itself cannot support or withstand much stress. However, <\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n By Richard Williams 3\/30\/08 \u201cLong, long ago in a far, far away Galaxy\u201d does this phrase sound familiar to you? Even someone my age has watched that Star Wars classic movie a few times over. However, it does bring out a couple<\/p>\n... Continued<\/a>","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":2516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4015],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mechanical-engineering"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4467,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481\/revisions\/4467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Capture329200841423_pm_2\"](\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/3\/capture329200841423_pm_21.jpg\" "\\"Capture329200841423_pm_2\\"")
<\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/p>\n
\nyou can see from the screen shot down below a couple of clicks were all
\nthat was needed other then setting the offset distance at .001\u201d then
\nclosing the end points. <\/span><\/span>I
\narrived at that offset distance by taking ten sheets of printing paper
\nstacked together and using a micrometer to measure the thickness and
\nthen of course dividing it by 10, the number of sheets. Hours
\nwere wasted because I rushed passed the basics of understanding how to
\ncreate a fully defined geometry and in not using the great tools given
\nto you in the <\/span>SolidWorks<\/span> application. Oh well.<\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
\nif you fold it in certain ways and mate it together by gluing it
\n(Elmer\u2019s Wood Glue) with other things or shapes, it can withstand some
\ntruly amazing weights for school building projects. Yes, you are correct this was an old bar trick done with three shot glasses and a newer bill. I
\nknow many of the teachers out there do those bridge building projects
\nwith their students and use balsa woods which can be expensive. Paper is cheaper; easily obtainable and can provide some great building materials for projects like these. Now you have the idea and it is yours. The picture down below is a roof section I made with two sub-assemblies from that first picture and I mated them together. I
\nalso used pine as the material for the paper because it is wood and
\nmost of our paper is made from pine trees and also because there is no
\nsuch paper material listed in either the SolidWorks<\/span> material database or on<\/span><\/span> (https:\/\/www.matweb.com\/<\/span><\/a>) <\/span><\/span>the MatWeb web site, which is another great source for material data. I did make a formal request for them to add it to their database of materials. They said they would. I
\nam like many of you out there, I am learning this application also and
\nI am glad to share with you my mistakes in believing that you will
\navoid making them too. Here\u2019s hoping that someone, somewhere, somehow, at sometime will be glad I shared this with the world. Sincerely. Richie.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/p>\n