SOLIDWORKS World – Day 1 – Part 2

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By now, you have probably realised that this is our second blog of the day!  There are so many great exhibitors here at SOLIDWORKS World 2017, we thought it only fair that we tell you about them.

I think we can all agree that a good education is of the utmost importance.  Today, we met with 2 different schools, one a High School and the other a University. Both are allowing students to put the knowledge they learn in the classroom to practical use.

First up is Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy from Goleta, California. The Academy caters for 400 students from 9th to 12th Grade, 100 students per Grade with a 50/50 ratio of girls to boys.

We’ve all heard of STEM, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. The Academy likes to call what they are doing STEAM. You’re probably wondering what that A stands for, well it stands for Art. Their goal is to teach their students the fundamentals of STEM, but with the addition of Art, so not only do their projects work well, but they also look great! As you can see in the photo below, colour plays a large part in their design.

The Academy Director is Amir Abo-Shaeer and under his leadership, the students have onsite access to CNC Machines, Lathes, Routers, Mills, Laser Cutters and a 3D Printer. They also use SOLIDWORKS. So, what does that mean? Well it means that the students can design and manufacture the majority of the parts they require for their projects in house.

If you’d like to learn more about Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy, why not call by their stand at SOLIDWORKS World or check out their webpage.

Next up are Bruin Racing from UCLA. Bruin Racing run two types of cars, a Formula SAE and a Baja SAE. Both cars are designed in house using SOLIDWORKS. They also manufacture most of the parts onsite also. That means they can continually tweak designs and parts till they are happy with the car. As anyone involved in motor sports will tell, no one is ever happy with their car, but that’s a different story!

The Baja SAE below have a top speed of 40mph. It obviously doesn’t have a 0-60mph time as the only way it will ever reach that speed is on the back of a tow truck. That’s not to say it’s a slow car, it’s just not designed for high speed racing.

The Formula SAE however is a nifty little racer. It has a top speed of 85mph and can do 0-60mph in 2.9seconds. Any Top Gear fan out there will tell you that’s impressive. For more information on Bruin Racing, you can stop by their stand at  SOLIDWORKS World or check out their webpage.

What we really enjoyed about meeting Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy and Bruin Racing / UCLA was the obvious enthusiasm the students have for doing what they do. It’s one thing to learn in a classroom, it’s another to be able to put that knowledge directly to work, to see it in action.

It’s nearly the end of the first day here at SOLIDWORKS World 2017. To keep with the education theme of todays blog, we sat in on the SOLIDWORKS: Apps for Kids Technical Session.  We can’t say too much about it yet, the SOLIDWORKS team will be making an announcement tomorrow about it, but the software can be summed up in one word, WOW!  Check out the SOLIDWORKS Blog tomorrow morning for more details!

 

Speaking about tomorrow, the DraftSight team are going to be very busy! At 10:30am there will be a General Session entitled What’s new with DraftSight. As the title suggests, this will cover the new features of DraftSight 2017 and perhaps a surprise or two!

Later on, at 1:30pm we have another Technical Training Session called Essentials of Draftsight – DraftSight for the SOLIDWORKS User.  This promises to be a very informative session and SOLIDWORKS users will be impressed by the functionality of DraftSight!

For the non SOLIDWORKS user, there is another Technical Training Session at the same time called Why Should I Upgrade to DraftSight Professional. It’s a good question and after this session, you’ll be aware of the added features within DraftSight Professional.

At 2:45pm, there are two Technical Training Sessions for the DraftSight user.  The first is DraftSight – All About SOLIDWORKS PDM Integration and PDF Task Conversion.  The second is DraftSight Toolbox and Other Tips. 

At 4:30pm we have two more sessions. The first is DraftSight for the DWG User. This is sure to be of interest for those users who would like to migrate to DraftSight any other DWG based CAD system. The second, and final DraftSight Technical Training Session tomorrow is Turbocharge DraftSight Using the Powerful DSAPI. If you want to learn how to customise DraftSight Professional using macros and LISP, then this is the class for you!

So that’s it for today. It’s been a busy, but great day for the DraftSight team at SOLIDWORKS World and tomorrow promises to be even busier. If you get a chance, call by the DraftSight stand, say hello and pick up some of our freebies!

MJ Smyth

MJ Smyth

The first time I used CAD, it was on a DOS PC with an 8088 processor, 640K of memory and a Hercules Mono Graphics Card... That, well that was a long long time ago. I switched to DraftSight the day it was released and haven't looked back!
MJ Smyth

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