Southeastern SolidWorks User Workshop: Day 1

Southeastern SolidWorks User Workshop: Day 1

Let me say first off that the location is ideally suited for this type of event. Thanks to Midlands Technical College for hosting the event. Tony Cantrell has done a great job on the organization of the event, thanks Tony. And thank you SolidWorks Corporation for the briefcase (but I wish I had chosen the backpack).

The day started more or less around 7:30 with a breakfast that included grits, biscuits, gravy, eggs, sausage and bacon. It looked and smelled awesome…I had already eaten so I can’t review the taste of the food. One of the great things about these events is the people you meet and the things you learn from them. I met Mary who in recent days has been trying to learn AutoDesk Inventor in order to complete a project that the customer requires in that format. Listening to her grief over Inventor makes me appreciate SolidWorks even more. I also met a man who teaches SolidWorks at a local High School. From this conversation it is evident that SolidWorks is really trying to have a positive effect on education.

At 8:30 we all gathered in an auditorium for the general welcome session. Tony said a few words and turned the program over to Richard Doyle. Richard did his SolidWorks community presentation going over all the available content on the Customer Portal. He went over some of the content that is on SolidWorks Labs page of which the new Blueprint Now sounds interesting. It allows you to edit DWG files online; I will check this out for a future blog.

The next session I attended was entitled 3DConnexion Space Pilot. I’ve been using a 3D controller since 2000 but I’ve been experiencing problems getting used to the new Space Navigators we bought to replace our no longer supported SpaceBall 4000FLXs. I was hoping to be able to get some pointers or ask some questions about the configuration of the new devices to be more like the old controllers. There was two things wrong with this session…the presenter was a no show and there wasn’t Space Pilot anywhere in sight. But Tony filled in quiet well and I did manage to win the drawing for one of the Navigators.

The lunch buffet consisted of a nice salad, turkey, beef patties, mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans. I can state that what I ate was very good. There might have been some dessert also but I tried not to notice that.

Session #2 for me was weldments which was excellently presented by Darren Henry. He started off with a PowerPoint but quickly got away from that and actually showed us all that you can do with weldments and how to do them. Since 3D sketches are a prerequisite for weldments I picked up much needed education on those also. Thanks Darren, good job.

The last session of the day was Drawing Tips & Stuff by the overworked (but seeming to love every minute) Richard Doyle. This presentation was full of things that I will be able to apply as soon as I get back to work. I ended up with a page and a half of notes, which is a lot for me. My TIP OF THE DAY comes from this session: When you have a note that mistakenly got attached to a drawing view, in other words the note moves when the drawing view is moved, simply select the note, Ctrl-X, make sure no view is active and do a Ctrl-V. Your note is back and it is not attached to anything.

I'm excited and looking forward to tomorrow's session. I'll let you know how that goes.