ADDA hosts 53rd Technical & Educational Training Conference

American Design Drafting Association is hosting the 53rd annual Technical & Education Training Conference on March 27-30, 2012 at the Hard Rock Hotel in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  The theme this year is “Training with Evolving Technologies”.

The conference is a 4 day event focused around building drafting and design skills.  There is heavy focus on drawing standards by ASME, in particular GD&T and ASME Y14.5-2009.  CAD technologies are also well covered.

Though this is not one of the larger trade conferences, its tight focus on design and drafting puts it at the top for training in the area of ASME standards, in my opinion.  This will benefit individuals who need more in-depth skills related to GD&T and drafting (even when paper drawings aren’t used).  The two day workshops on GD&T are particularly valuable.

Due to scheduling conflicts, I won’t personally won’t be able to attend this year, but I do hope to get a chance to go again within the next couple of years.

The early bird special for people who register by March 5, 2012 is $100 off the attendance fee.  More information may be found at their registration form page.

**UPDATE** 2/2/2012

Description of workshops for this conference are now available.

Tuesday Two: powering eyes

Polyplus propel potentional power, providing pertinent p…oh…nevermind.  Polyplus new technology will allow for “ultra-high energy density [lithium] batteries ” to significantly increase battery charge.  This will allow cellphones and many other devices longer times of operation between rechargings.

A microchip may soon be available from the minds at MIT that will allow blind people to acheive some level of sight.  It’s not a full site, but “blind person to recognize faces and navigate a room without assistance.”

SolidWorks World 2012: Things to do in San Diego (Updated)

Due to the relatively good weather in San Diego all year long, family attractions don’t have to close for the “winter”.  Here are some of the places you may wish to visit while in San Diego for SolidWorks World 2012.  Have fun with these ideas!

Attractions

Enjoying the town

  • San Diego’s Downtown – Creation of downtown areas for denizens has become an art form by its own right in California.  Practically every little town to big city has a developed downtown.  San Diego is no exception.
  • Seaport Villiage – Great place in the San Diego harbor for diner, explore shops and more.
  • Coronado Island – Beautiful area to explore, just over the bridge!
  • East Villiage – Up and coming area near Gaslamp.

Enjoying the area

  • San Diego’s wine country – though it may not be as nearly as developed as other wine regions in California, still might be worth the time to explore.
  • La Jolla Cove – Beautiful beach and cove.
  • Pacific Coast Highway – for those who may want to drive along the beautiful California coastline.  This could be a couple of hours to a couple of days, depending on how far you want to drive and how much you want to see.

Special thanks to Troy Peterson on the SolidWorks forums for many of these ideas.

**UPDATE**

Daniel Herzberg has created a nifty utility on Foursquare (you don’t need to be a member of Foursquare to see the link) that includes additional points of interest and a general map of their locations.

 

 

Rulers!

Although the status bar of the SolidWorks drawing mode always displays the X and Y coordinates of the location of the mouse cursor on the drawing sheet, sometimes the visual aid of a sheet ruler may provide additional help. 

SolidWorks drawing mode rules can be turned on at View pulldown>Rulers.

Once turned on, the rulers appear at the top and left edges of the drawing window.

The rulers also enhance the usefulness and feedback when the Grid is displayed. This is because the rulers provide constant confirmation as to the mouse cursor’s drawing location on the screen, no manner how far in the zoom level.

This makes keeping track of one’s position on the drawing sheet more intuitive, especially during sketching and using snap-to-grip functionality.

Control over various aspects of snapping and grid are available in Tools pulldown>Options…>Document Properties>Grid/Snap. 

Changes to grid increments are reflected in the rulers.

New in SolidWorks 2012: Improved placement of Section View Labels (Another one not mentioned in “What’s New”! )

In previous versions of SolidWorks, when you attempted to move the Section View letter by clicking on it and dragging, very strong soft snaps would often force the location of the letter to fall into one of two set locations around the Section View cutting plane line arrow.  The snaps seemed even stronger if you were zoomed out a bit.

In SolidWorks 2012, users now have more intuitive control over the the placement of a Section View letter when they wish to move it.   The two snap locations are not nearly so strong.  It is still very easy to place a letter at one of the two locations by dragging and hovering the letter over the arrow tip or the bend in the cutting plane line.  However, it is also much easier if you want to place the letter at a different location; particularly when you are zoomed out.

This improved functionality will help users that like their Section View letters to appear at alternative locations for style or maybe because of a very busy drawing with limited space.

Senseless Sunday: skin deep lunacy

  • The next leap year where Feburaury does not have a full moon is 25721.
  • The current definition of the term “Blue Moon” dates back to March 1946, in which Sky and Telescope magizine mistakenly misinterpreted the definition of the term from 1937 Maine Farmers’ Almanac.  “Blue Moon” originally referred to the third Full Moon in a season which has four Full Moons2. 
  • Atheists outnumber all but nine organized religions in the World.
  • The skin of a polar bear is black. Though the fur appears white, it’s actually clear.
  • More often, you will use more gas making a left turn than making a right turn.