I am a SolidWorks employee

As some already know, DS SolidWorks Corp recently hired me as the new Product Definition Specialist for drawings.  As such, I am no longer a neutral outsider in affairs related to SolidWorks Corp or any products created by Dassault Systemses.  I will no longer be posting commentary about future capabilities in SolidWorks, nor business plans of the corporation.  I will also likely scale back the types of product reviews that I conduct.  I will still contribute other types of articles to SolidWorks Legion, such as how-to’s, tips and tricks, coverage of public announcements, etc.

This website will still remain my own, and will still not be promotional in nature.   Its content is not reviewed by SolidWorks Corp.  It will not be an official channel for information from SolidWorks Corp.  No specifics about my role at SolidWorks nor any projects, nor customers will be discussed on this website.  I will still cover events, particularly those that I attend, such as user group meetings, SolidWorks World and SolidWorks Technical Summits.

That said, this website is called a Legion for a reason.  There are other contributors to SolidWorks Legion are still free to express themselves.  As always, each contributor is responsible for their own submissions.

I may post SolidWorks related communications via my new Twitter account @swsuper.  That account will likely be used for any official SolidWorks work, such as survey links.

Your comments about this news are welcome.

So, where the heck have I been?

For the past week, I was driving across the USA.  I stopped off at several cities along the way.  There were some surprizes; nothing Earth shattering, but still surprizes.  There was some minor disappoints too (mostly at Hotwire’s unpublished rates program).  If you’d like to see my adventure, check out my personal blog here.  Overall, the trip took 5 and 1/2 days.  Each day was very briefly summed up with a few photos to enhance the retelling of the journey.

SolidWorks Legion April 2011 contest winners

Congratutations to Gary Hall (1st place winner) and Jeff Cox (2nd place winner).  3DConnexion will (or already has) shipped the SpacePilot PRO to Gary Hall and the SpaceNavigator to Jeff Cox.  I hope they enjoy their new toys!

On a side note, I’ve not been able to actively post frequent articles recently.  There is a very good reason for that.  I’ve been busy.  There will be more information about this busy-ness soon.  ???Stay tuned!  That said, article frequency should pick up in a few of months.

SolidWorks Legion contest for SpacePilot PRO (April 2011)

SpacePilot PRO

Republished reminder (original post here):

What better way is there for me to show my appreciation to SolidWorks Legion readers than to give away free stuff!  3Dconnexion gives away new 3D mice from time to time to raise awareness of their products.  This month, they have offered to give a SpacePilot PRO to the first place winner of the SolidWorks Legion April 2011 contest.  In addition, they have offered to give a new SpaceNavigator to the second place winner.  Of course, I’m running this contest to raise awareness of SolidWorks Legion.

SpaceNavigator

To enter the contest, send a Twitter Direct Message to @fcsuper with the following phrase “I want my 3D mouse” and include your first and last name.  If @fcsuper is not currently following your Twitter account, leave a comment on this article (below) prior to April 24, 2011 to ask me to follow you.  Otherwise, use the alternative entry method by sending an email to buzyperson@gmail.com with the “I want my 3D mouse” phrase and your name in the email subject.  Limit is one entry per person.  Only the first entry by an entrant is eligible.  The deadline to entry is April 30, 2011 5:00PM Pacific Time.   No entries will be accepted after that time.  It is each entrant’s responsibility to ensure their own ability to use Twitter or email in order to entry this contest. Unfortunately, due to restrictions established by 3DConnexion, only residents of the United States of America are eligible to win.

For additional rules and conditions, please see original post.

ATEC11: GD&T presentations

ATEC11 offered explorations into GD&T in the form of two separate 2-day courses prepared by the ADDA, GD&T Fundamental Training and GD&T Application Training.

GD&T Fundamental Training

This course, presented by Dennis Schwartz, trained attendees with great coverage of GD&T fundamentals.  It walked them through an educational approach to learning the ASME GD&T standard, as applied to engineering drawings.  I spoke with one of the attendees, Kahlil Owens.  Owens is a drafter for a local company in the Kansas City area.  He is also attending ITT Technical Institute for formal education in the Drafting profession.  Even though he had a lot of praise for ITT Technical Institute’s program, he said that GD&T isn’t covered very well within school.  He found ADDA’s course at this conference to be intensive and important to the development of his career.

I attended the portion of this course that covered positional tolerancing.  I found the presentation of the material to be well-paced.  It was repetitive where necessary to help attendees fully understand and appreciate the use of GD&T.

GD&T Application Training

This course, presented by Luis Aguirre, was designed for individuals that already have an understanding of GD&T fundamentals.  It engaged attendees to offer solutions to their own real world problems.  Focus was on sharpening GD&T skills, making GD&T more useful, reducing costs, improved datum selection, etc.  There was also discussion on the advanced use of positional and profile tolerances.