Category: Career

SolidWorks World 2014 Day 3 – Tuesday

User Community and Beta Highlights from General Session
Tuesday General Sessions tends to focus on the user community. Richard Doyle has become a fixture on the big stage as he gives us the SolidWorks User Group Network updates. This year he announced the following awards.

  • 2013 User Group of the Year is San Diego SolidWorks User Group, awarded to leaders Phil Sluder and Jim Boland
  • 2013 Wayne Tiffany Group Leader of the Year is awarded to Jeff Holliday
  • 2013 Michelle Pillers Community Award is awarded to Deepak Gupta

The SolidWorks Beta program for SolidWorks 2014 is the most successful yet. Here are this year’s winners for the program

Customers:

  • Bettina Walker, SolidWorks
  • Yoshihiro Dobashi, Simulation
  • Masanobu Higashino, EPDM
  • Muneki Okano, Composer

VARs:

  • Michael Malov of SolidWorks Russia, SolidWorks
  • Charley Saint of Hawkridge Systems, EPDM
  • Andrey Aliamovsky of SolidWorks Russia, Simulation
  • Ludmila Staroverova of SolidWorks Russia and Scott Woods of Hawkridge Systems, Composer

My Hands-on Presentation
I conducted my first Hands-on Session of this year’s conference on Tuesday evening, covering the topic of drawing views. This is a new presentation at SolidWorks World. Though the presentation is intended for beginners and novice users, by going through all of the view types, even experienced users learned something they have forgotten or missed before.  Several attendees showed (by a raise of heads) they learned something new from several of the exercises throughout the presentation.  I may expand the presentation to cover additional topics, such as the new Replace Model in SolidWorks 2014.

SolidWorks World 2014: Day 1, Day 2 Monday General Session – Mechanical Conceptual revealed

I'm an employee and also a member of the Bacon BrotherhoodSolidWorks World 2014 is going strong.  Sunday was a great time to catch up with old friends and meet a lot of new people.  Many people are lucky enough to have joined the Bacon Brotherhood, including yours truly.  For more details, see Twitter and search #baconbrotherhood.

This year’s SolidWorks World reached the record of 5600+ attendees on Monday!  That is a new record, which is especially important since Monday (though technically Day 2) is really the first full day of the conference (often the number goes even higher by Tuesday).

The Monday General session was well reviewed by Brian McElyea of CAD Fanatic.  Briefly, the morning was largely dedicated to SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual (SWMC) with a great presentation by Aaron Kelly, VP of User Experience and Product Portfolio Management and Kishore Boyalakuntla, Director of User Experience and Product Portfolio Management.  They demonstrated a case where customers and vendors can work collaboratively to quickly develop new mechanical concepts on a common  CAD model using social interaction and advanced design software.  Brian then notes,

Representatives of four of the lighthouse companies (TriAxial Design and Analysis, Kennedy Hygiene Products Limited, Karl W. Schmidt & Associates, and J.G. WEISSER SÖHNE GmbH & Co. KG) that have been using the product over the last few months were then brought out and gave their thoughts on the software.

“Lighthouse” is a term that refers to real customers who are earlier adopters by invitation. They get a preview of functionality while an application is near completion but before it is made available to everyone. Lighthouse customers use the application in their real world enterprise on actual projects, and provide important feedback for further improvements.

Additional news is SolidWorks Industrial Conceptual was announced with a brief teaser.  This generated a lot of excitement.

For a preview of Tuesday, see Michael Lord’s photoblog.

 

Drawings and Detailing are getting a lot of attention this year @ SolidWorks World 2014

Drawings and Detailing are getting a lot of attention this year at SolidWorks World 2014 in breakout  and hands-on sessions.  There are enough sessions here to fill the schedule of anyone interested in modern drafting and SolidWorks capabilities.  Check it out!

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SolidWorks World 2014 Floor Plan is up!

In recent years, a floor plan tool for the SolidWorks World has been available online ahead of the conference.  This tool seems to be getting more useful every year.

This year’s floor plan as a full map of each floor of the conference, including conference rooms and the Partner Pavilion.

Partner Pavilion

The Partner Pavilion map layouts exhibitor locations with a flyout that includes a company profile.

SolidWorks World 2014 Floor Plan

SolidWorks World 2014 is right around the corner

Breakout Sessions

SolidWorks World 2014 is only weeks away!  As usually, this year’s conference is shaping up with a session schedule that is filled with great topics.  These are a small sample of what is on the schedule as of January 8, 2014 (schedule is subject to change):

  • The Art of the Swoopy Part by Sal Lama. Gain exposure to the critical tools required to confidently model complex shapes. We’ll use numerous techniques, including sketch picture, splines, various surfacing features, and multibody to create consumer product designs.
  • Extra-large Assemblies by Adrian Velazquez. Learn some features, options, tips, and methods to squeeze performance and productivity out of assemblies that are more than large (think 200,000 components).
  • The Big GD&T Theory by Thomas Allsup. A humorous look at the various GD&T concepts used by SolidWorks designers to refine their geometric requirements..
  • Deliver the Right Part Efficiently with SolidWorks Composer by Kevin Mackay.  A guide through the simple process of creating both 2D and 3D online interactive electronic parts catalogs (EPC) directly from the engineering data using SolidWorks Composer.
  • SolidWorks Tips You Need to Know! 3.0 by Ben Eadie. Increase the productivity of your everyday use with tips and tricks. As a 17-year SolidWorks user and the owner/operator of solidworkstips.com (SolidWorks Tips Daily) for the past 14 years, I know you can never learn all of SolidWorks. Parts, drawings, assemblies, and more will be discussed.
  • All the Uses of DimXpert by Josh Spencer. Learn how DimXpert creates 3D dimensions with tolerances. We will use TolAnalyst for tolerance stackups, view the dimensions in eDrawings, and also create a 2D drawing in a matter of seconds.
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Preparing for the SolidWorks Certification exams (version 2)

This entry is part 2 of 5 in the series SOLIDWORKS Certification

Certificate on the shelfThere continues to be a lot of interest in getting certified as SolidWorks Expert (CSWE).  Through there are no official accolades that go long with passing the CSWE, the certificate can garner employer and industry recognition of your established skills.  Even as the number of Certified SolidWorks Professional grows (CSWP), the number of those with the higher CSWE certification is still small by comparison.  Right now, there’s just over 1500 CSWEs.  To earn your opportunity to take the CSWE exam, you have to pass the CSWP and also pass four advanced exam modules from a selection including topics like Weldments, Surfacing, FEA, etc.

Applian Way Technologies has a blog with several articles that are brief preparation guides for various exam modules. A Very Swell Idea, Inc has some good advice for taking the modules in their discussion of CSWP Weldment exam. 3D Dimensional Engineer also has a great series on CSWP Preparation.

SolidWorks website itself has great information for each exam, including the core, advanced and the expert exams.

  • CSWA – Certified SolidWorks Associate
  • CSWA – Acedemic – Certified SolidWorks Academic Associate
  • CSWP – Certified SolidWorks Professional
  • CEPA – Certified Enterprise PDM Administrator
  • CSDA – Certified Sustainable Design Associate
  • CSWSA-FEA – Certified SolidWorks Simulation Associate – Finite Element Analysis Advanced Exam
  • CSWSP-FEA – Certified SolidWorks Simulation Professional – Finite Element Analysis Advanced Exam
  • CSWP-Sheet Metal – Certified SolidWorks Professional – Sheet Metal Advanced Exam
  • CSWP-Weldments – Certified SolidWorks Professional – Weldments Advanced Exam
  • CSWP-Surfacing – Certified SolidWorks Professional – Surfacing Advanced Exam
  • CSWP-Mold Tools – Certified SolidWorks Professional – Mold Tools Advanced Exam
  • CSWP-DRWT – Certified SolidWorks Professional – Drawing Tools Advanced Exam
  • CSWE – Certified SolidWorks Expert

Once you’ve earned your certificate, you can exhibit it in a number of ways.  The certificate with a unique code is provided to you in the form of a PDF file, which can be printed out or shown on your mobile device.  You can use your unique code number to allow others to verify your acheivement.  Banner images are also provided so that you can add a certificate badge to your emails or website.  You can also add your certification information to your Linkedin account.  Don’t forget to notify your employer and colleagues.