Career Archives - Page 3 of 11

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 Brotherhood SolidWorks 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

SolidWorks Templates 101: Parts, Assemblies and Drawings by Eric Bright – Learn to manage metadata in regards to parts, assemblies, and drawings. Template creation is made simple if you follow several rules and steps along the process. Once created, documentation and file creation is made simple.

Working with Drawing Views in SolidWorks 2014 by Matthew Lorono – This hands-on session will cover each type of drawing view available in SOLIDWORKS, including often overlooked functionality and new capabilities introduced in recent years, such as enhancements to Section View and Auxiliary Views.

Let Customized Templates Work For You! Use Custom Properties! by Crystal Yazvac – Learn to create your own custom templates for parts, assemblies, and drawings. This presentation will teach you how to save out templates and add custom properties that will automatically fill in your Sheet Formats and BOMs for every file you make, including Toolbox parts.

The Big GD&T Theory by Thomas Allsup – A humorous look at various GD&T concepts used by SolidWorks designers to refine their geometric requirements.

Advanced DraftSight Hands-on Lesson by Mark Lyons – This hands-on session will focus on advanced DraftSight functionality. As a participant, you should have some basic knowledge of DraftSight prior to the session. After the session, you will have an in-depth understanding of DraftSight and the benefits it can bring to your organization.

Introduction to Model-based Definition in the Context of SolidWorks by Matthew Lorono – Get introduced to model-based definition methods and types of implementations in the context of SOLIDWORKS functionality, including new 20The United States Government Loves Model-based Definition.

Pages: 123

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.

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

SolidWorks World 2014 is right around the corner

Session Categories

This year’s list of categories for hands-on and breakout sessions:

Customer Success
Data Management
Design Automation
Design Communication
Design Simulation
Electrical
Modeling Essentials
New Products
Productivity Tools
SolidWorks in Education

Exhibitor Directory

There is already a long list of exhibitors covering a wide range of needs, like drafting, high level PLM, industrial design, CAM, etc, etc, etc. Be sure to pay particular attention to Gold Partners whose products run from within the SolidWorks interface. Check out the Exhibitors who are already have their location established in the Partner Pavilion.

Special Event

This year’s Special Event is at Embarcadero Park! Attractions will include:

Test your skills on the trapeze!
Music
Local brews and fare
Richard Doyle stated, “There’s a bit more to it than what is described, but I’m sure you all want to have some surprises, so I won’t say.”

Pages: 123

Preparing for the SolidWorks Certification exams (version 2)

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

There 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.