fcsuper
Mechanical
- Apr 20, 2006
- 2,204
At the invitation of Richard Doyle, I attended the one-day training and networking “SWUGN Technical Summit” for San Jose, CA on Nov 14, 2007. I was thoroughly impressed with the diversity and quality of the event’s presentations which covered topics ranging from training for Animator to discussions of concepts like Horizontal Design. There were so many presentations offered that two were held at a time, giving the attendees the opportunity to choose the topics that most interested them.
Many of the presentations at our Technical Summit are similar to the Break-Out Sessions that will be offered at SolidWorks 2008 in January. There were a total of 10 training presentations in five sessions, not including the free breakfast and lunch with its own presentation. Which brings me to the best point: the Technical Summits are only $35! This event is literally worth more than tens times that amount. Similar events easily cost $400 or more, and don’t include free breakfast and lunch. I can’t say enough that these events are a great value, offering tremendous bang for the buck. They are also great networking opportunities since end users of all sorts come together, from industrial designers to shop owners. (As a side note, if the boss is unlikely to approve of your trip to a SolidWorks World conference, they may jump at the chance to approve your attendance to one of these local Technical Summits instead.)
In general, SWUGN Technical Summits are scheduled monthly in cities around the U.S. and Canada. These events are hosted by the SolidWorks User Group Network and feature technical sessions geared toward all levels of users. They are planned through local SWUG’s. I recommend looking up your local group and attending one of these Technical Summits. Details can be found here:
About the San Jose event, the presentations I attended at the San Jose Technical Summit were Assemblies, Weldments, Horizontal Design, Sheet Metal and Surfacing. The following is a quick over view of those presentations.
The Assemblies session was by Matthew Cummins and included guidelines for working with assemblies, tips for establishing methods to automate the assembly process, and tricks such as how to use part templates to automate part creation. He presented the material in a manner that was both easy to understand and simple to implement.
Devon Sowell discussed weldments in his session. This was a very popular session that covered setting up SolidWorks to take full advantage of its weldment functions, use of 3D Sketches, weldment profiles, and much more.
At lunch, Richard Doyle conducted a trivia Q&A that was informative about SolidWorks the software and the company. The prize for the person with the most correct answers was a free pass to SolidWorks World 2008! I did not win that prize, but I did walk away with something for myself.
Horizontal Modeling by Elise Moss was a very informative session that talked about Design with Intend for Maintenance, Manufacturing, Assembly and Analysis. Elise’s presentation was excellent and the principles she discussed can not only be applied to SolidWorks but any work environment where any CAD application is in use.
Richard Doyle is a serious trooper. He conducted 3 of the presentations himself, not including breakfast and lunch sessions. I enjoyed his Sheet Metal session, where he went into detail about many sheet metal features. I’ve been using sheet metal functions in SolidWorks since first included. However, this presentation went into more detail than anything I’ve been doing and helped me have a wider understanding of SolidWorks functionality in this area.
Ed Eaton conducted a very informative session about Surfaces. I’ve always considered this area my weakest when it comes to SolidWorks. Ed made many areas about Surface clearer. He shed light on what SolidWorks does, how it does it, and sometimes why it does it. This logical approach to the material helped me understand Surfacing a lot better, particularly regarding when to use Loft and when to use Boundary to achieve the desired results.
I give a thank you to all of the presenters, most of which flew in from out of town just for the one day of this event: Richard Doyle, Matthew Cummins, Devon Sowell, Phil Sluder, Elise Moss, Nathan Stump, and Ed Eaton. Hope to see everyone at SWW 2008!
Matt
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
sw.fcsuper.com
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group
Many of the presentations at our Technical Summit are similar to the Break-Out Sessions that will be offered at SolidWorks 2008 in January. There were a total of 10 training presentations in five sessions, not including the free breakfast and lunch with its own presentation. Which brings me to the best point: the Technical Summits are only $35! This event is literally worth more than tens times that amount. Similar events easily cost $400 or more, and don’t include free breakfast and lunch. I can’t say enough that these events are a great value, offering tremendous bang for the buck. They are also great networking opportunities since end users of all sorts come together, from industrial designers to shop owners. (As a side note, if the boss is unlikely to approve of your trip to a SolidWorks World conference, they may jump at the chance to approve your attendance to one of these local Technical Summits instead.)
In general, SWUGN Technical Summits are scheduled monthly in cities around the U.S. and Canada. These events are hosted by the SolidWorks User Group Network and feature technical sessions geared toward all levels of users. They are planned through local SWUG’s. I recommend looking up your local group and attending one of these Technical Summits. Details can be found here:
About the San Jose event, the presentations I attended at the San Jose Technical Summit were Assemblies, Weldments, Horizontal Design, Sheet Metal and Surfacing. The following is a quick over view of those presentations.
The Assemblies session was by Matthew Cummins and included guidelines for working with assemblies, tips for establishing methods to automate the assembly process, and tricks such as how to use part templates to automate part creation. He presented the material in a manner that was both easy to understand and simple to implement.
Devon Sowell discussed weldments in his session. This was a very popular session that covered setting up SolidWorks to take full advantage of its weldment functions, use of 3D Sketches, weldment profiles, and much more.
At lunch, Richard Doyle conducted a trivia Q&A that was informative about SolidWorks the software and the company. The prize for the person with the most correct answers was a free pass to SolidWorks World 2008! I did not win that prize, but I did walk away with something for myself.
Horizontal Modeling by Elise Moss was a very informative session that talked about Design with Intend for Maintenance, Manufacturing, Assembly and Analysis. Elise’s presentation was excellent and the principles she discussed can not only be applied to SolidWorks but any work environment where any CAD application is in use.
Richard Doyle is a serious trooper. He conducted 3 of the presentations himself, not including breakfast and lunch sessions. I enjoyed his Sheet Metal session, where he went into detail about many sheet metal features. I’ve been using sheet metal functions in SolidWorks since first included. However, this presentation went into more detail than anything I’ve been doing and helped me have a wider understanding of SolidWorks functionality in this area.
Ed Eaton conducted a very informative session about Surfaces. I’ve always considered this area my weakest when it comes to SolidWorks. Ed made many areas about Surface clearer. He shed light on what SolidWorks does, how it does it, and sometimes why it does it. This logical approach to the material helped me understand Surfacing a lot better, particularly regarding when to use Loft and when to use Boundary to achieve the desired results.
I give a thank you to all of the presenters, most of which flew in from out of town just for the one day of this event: Richard Doyle, Matthew Cummins, Devon Sowell, Phil Sluder, Elise Moss, Nathan Stump, and Ed Eaton. Hope to see everyone at SWW 2008!
Matt
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
sw.fcsuper.com
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group
