SWW09: Prototype This!

Prototype This is a show on Discovery Channel where four engineers create prototypes for radical new ideas.  Dr. Mike North and Joe Grant represented the show at today’s General Session.  From their entrance, we know this would be no ordinary presentation.  Joe was in a Firefigther’s hat, pushing (and pulling) Mike up to the stage in one of their inventions for the local fire department.  It was a cart that could carry firefighting gear up stairs and convert into a chair to assist in the rescue of trapped individuals.

They talked about the earlier struggles they had with the show’s producers in the first few episodes.  The producers expected 100% successful projects of world changing scope each week (in fact they wanted two each week originally).  As the show went on, the producers gained more appreciation for the design process and began to focus the show in that direction.

At the news conference that immediately followed the General Session, Mike and Joe talked about the goals of the show: to show cutting edge technology, to inspire kids, and get them to reconnect with the development process.  As the show went on, they realized that kids started to think the way engineers think about design.  They were becoming interested in a career in engineering.

When the show started, many of the devices were built in very traditional ways (such as reliance on machined parts).  They then started working with companies like Forecast 3D (of which I am also a customer from time to time) to utilize rapid prototyping technologies.

I asked them, “How long have you been using SolidWorks, and how did you first become aware of the software?”  Mike (the mechanical guy) explained that before the show, he did not do the type of work that exposed him 3D CAD modelling often.  He discovered SolidWorks through the course of the show.  SolidWorks Corp provided one seat for them to use.  They then started to design and conduct FEA activities with SolidWorks.  Since then, it has become the show’s “bread and butter”, and that it was the “savior of the show”.  Mike explained that SolidWorks helped the show go from being a build-show to become a design-show.  You can’t get plugs better than that.

Another area they began using heavily was 3D printing.  Not only did using this technology speed up the design cycle, producers where enthusiastic about being able to print actual working parts right in front of the camera.  Mike and Joe showed off a wall walking device that would support 80 lbs of weight on window.  The structure of the device was 3D printed.  It had a shape and composition that could not be reproduced using traditional manufacturing means.

As the show progressed in season one, the producers began to understand that failure of a project is still an engineering success.  Failure is needed in order to learn and to succeed.  Sucess is measured by the achievements within the project.  It appears that SolidWorks played a significant role in helping this transition in their mindset by providing the backbone of the design process so that sucesses could be realized much faster.

SWW09: Wednesday General Session (Part 3: Jeff Ray makes announcements)

First, the fun fact.  SolidWorks World 2010 will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Southern California.  I think this is good for many of us left coasters, but also for those from the Asian Pacific areas and Central America; it means visitors from the East Coast and Europe will have to do more planning.

In a pre-announcement of sorts, Ray spoke about a new program that will start later this year called Engineering Stimulus Package.  This program is designed to support engineers who have lost their job through no fault of their own in the current difficult economic environment.  A free personal version of SolidWorks will be given to such individuals, along with contact with their local VAR.  In a news conference later today, Jeff Ray added that this program is similar to another program implemented by SolidWorks Corp during the last economic downturn.  The key difference this time is that this new program will have the goal to help the participicants to achieve a CSWA, which will give them an advantage by providing certification of their skillset related to SolidWorks. He also added that the roll out of this program will be in different stages around the world, but that it will be global (not North American centric).  A forecoming official press release will have more details later this year.

Ray announced that there is a new program in Ireland where 18,000 seats will be placed in over 900 schools around the country, giving 16 to 18 year-olds the opportunity to use 3D CAD software earlier in their schooling.  Currently, there are over a 1 million students using SolidWorks worldwide.

He made several other announcements that I may cover via other articles.

SWW09: Wednesday General Session (Part 1: Annual Top 10)

Each year at SolidWorks World, SolidWorks Corp announces the top 10 enhancement requests, as voted upon by the users.  It is claimed that there has been a 70% implementation rate for the top 10 requests over the past 8 years.  It was implied that his years list comes from the new service on SolidWorks.com called Brainstorm (though I don’t remember this being explicitly stated):

10. Excel behavior for tables.

9. Abort any running command using ESC key.

8. Add lock points.

7. Dual monitor support.

6. On-the-fly equation creation and editing.

5. Faster rebuild on complex models and drawings.

4. Rename configurations that are in use.

3. SolidWorks backward compatibility

2. Clear memory when file is closed.

1. Increase program stability.

SWW09: “Sage”; Engineering and Environmental Impact

SolidWorks Corp has made a giant first step in providing engineers and designers with the ability to quickly determine the environmental impact of any design.  In partnership with PE International, SolidWorks Corp announced today that they are providing a new tool for this purpose that will run within SolidWorks, currently codenamed Sage.  It promises to make sustainability more accessible to engineers and designers.SolidWorks Corp believes that many engineers do not understand the environmental impact of their designs.  This is perhaps because the engineers have little or no access to this information.  But also, many companies still do not have a focus on designing with environmental impact in mind.  Sage will provide this information in an easy fallow report that can be used by the engineer during the design process.

The question is this, why should engineers care about the environmental impact of their designs?  Decisions they make early in the design process have the most influence on the environmental impact of the final product.  Sage not only makes it possible for them to determine the impact of their designs, it also allows them to provide others (who may not be technically inclined) with this information in a clear manner.

The core areas that will be addressed by Sage are carbon footprint, energy consumption of the processes used to make a part (including regional data, transportation, etc), air and water pollution (such as emissions from the manufacturing processes).  It displays this information in several easy to read charts.  As stated by SolidWorks Corp, “Sage is the only CAD-integrated software to provide a comprehensive view of a design’s impact.”  Sage will not only provide the overall impact, but it will allow the engineer to drill down into the design to find out which factors are having particular influence on the product’s environmental impact.

As stated above, Sage will run within SolidWorks.  It is based on PE International’s GaBi software engine.  Sage will use the PE International vetted database which contains extremely comprehensive information about a wide number of variables that are affected by each design.  Though information in this database may be as specialized as a full blown special study conducted by PE International, the results it provides will be of the same quality.  The database used by Sage contains averages for particular areas of impact

Sage will contain the ability to allow engineers to compare design changes, so they can make informed decisions early in the design process.  It will allow them to “see hidden gotchas”, as stated by Rick Chin, Director of Product and Marketing Innovation, SolidWorks.  The reports created by Sage will be standalone (i.e., SolidWorks or SolidWorks experience is not required to see or use the report once it is created).  The reports will contain educational matter that will explain the criteria within the report, and also why the information within the report is important.  This will empower the engineer to explain critical design decisions to upper management.

Though nothing is finalized yet, reports will likely be available in both Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF formats.

Two versions of Sage will be available for SolidWorks 2010.  First is the Xpress version that will allow analysis of individual parts.  The Pro version will provide analysis of assemblies and entire designs.  Also, a downloadable version (presumably an Xpress version for SolidWorks 2009) will be available early from SolidWorks Labs by this summer.

This new tool from PE International and SolidWorks Corp gives the engineer a whole new level of understanding of their designs.  It allows them to make environmentally friendly decisions rapidly based on years of data and experience from the PE International team.  I’m personally looking forward to having a chance to utilize Sage as soon as it is available, not only out of curiosity, but also to write are more detailed review of it’s capabilities in action.

SWW09: Skeletons and Modelling Horizontally (live, nearly)

I’m rudely blogging live from a breakout session.  Of all people, it’s Matt Lombard I’m doing this to.  He will appreciate the ironic nature of this activity.  Will he hate me for it when he finds out?  No, unless my typing annoys him right now.

OK, I’m far enough back in the room where this doesn’t seem to be an issue, though there may be people around me that might be annoyed.  Again, no one seems to care.  (If the person next to me is trying to hint to me to stop by clearing your throat, let me apologize now.  Anyways, here we go!)

Matt says people are error phobic.  They worry if they have errors in a model.  This may cause unnecessary worry about finding errors in models.

Horizontal modelling is taking things to the extreme to protect your modelling data to avoid errors in the model.  Someone interested in this type of modelling approach is interested in trying to solve a problem they are experiencing.  The two methods to address such problems are to 1) ignore them when they crop up, or 2) presumptively stop daisy chaining references.  Link to objects that don’t break, such as sketches and planes.  Don’t link to solid faces, edges and vertices.

He compares a model created through regular practice with the same part modelled with horizontal modeling.  The relationships between features are all over the place with the regular methods, compared with clean results from horizontal modeling.  In the HM model, origin planes form the foundation, when are linked to reference places, then linked to reference sketch, with independent features that are all linked back to the reference sketch; at the end are the fillets.

Design intent is described by the edges.  HM allows one to lay out design intent with a set of sketches.  Features created from this will not fail if they are re-ordered (except for fillets).  Matt then demonstrate that HM doesn’t work quite by accident, so we continue the demonstration “theoretically”.  I think the failure to achieve the desired results shows just how hard it is to implement HM effectively.  Thank god watching Matt is entertaining because this type of issue in any other session would result in very boring dead time.  Matt actively engages the audience, which is now trying to address why SolidWorks created unintended relationships in his demonstration model.  Going through this process is interesting, but distracting.

In a question from Matt about who is using HM, the audience answers.  One person states they use HM for multiple configuration components, but would not bother in a simple single configuration part.  Another individual states it is also useful in in-context model assemblies.  HM may also be useful in 2D drawings.  Of course, now the audience is trying to discuss the demonstration model.  There doesn’t really seem to be a consensus; again pointing back to issues with trying to employ HM.  Of course, maybe that just means there are more than one way to achieve stable HM.

HM models are modelled to live forever through changes.  Concept modelling may not be able to employ HM techniques since the part may not be fully understood at the time when modelling is started.

In an almost conclusionary lament, Matt states that everything in SolidWorks is like a balance between stability versus speed of use.  Using HM modelling techniques is a tool to use at the appropriate situation, such as well understood production items where the design is complete before modelling begins.

OK, just for the record (Matt), the only reason I’m live blogging is because I really do not have the time to get all the articles done that I want to this day.  I promise I will not do this in the future.  Thank you for your presentation.

SolidWorks World 2009 Recap

Well,

I flew in Sunday night @ 5 pm and flew out this moring @ 5 am.  A short and sweet visit to SolidWorks World.  (Sorry I missed you Matt)  Even with the economy in the dumps the turn out was huge.  I was extremely excited to visit with the SWUGN and Bloggers unfortunately the the Blogger event was on Saturday and the  SWUGN summit was during my presentation on Monday.  Richard, thanks for introducing me to some of the other SolidWorks instructors in the SWUGN.  Let them know I will be happy to help them out.

 Overall, very excited to see everyone this year.

Looking forward to next year.