I’m so grateful for the friends I found through the network of SolidWorks users. I don’t have to name names, you know who you are. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all the help you have given to me right now when I need it the most. While I still don’t know what the future holds for me and how my situation will turn out in the end, I do know I’m blessed to have wonderful friends like you.

Thank you!

Gabi

Here is a short video about changing the view orientation while creating an animation in SolidWorks. Someone sent me a question about it and I thought it would be cool to answer it this way. Hope the video is of any use to someone out there. Oh, and I also made a Spanish version!

 Yesterday was one of those fun times for me because I had the great pleasure of attending GoEngineer’s SolidWorks Roll Out at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.

This was actually my first time attending a Roll Out, and I had a great time. In case you’re wondering, a Roll Out is a special event organized by the VARs to introduce their customers to all the  functionality available in the newest release of SolidWorks. This is a little similar to what you may see during the last day of presentations at SolidWorks World, but with the added advantage that  here you have a whole dedicated team of application engineers available and ready to answer any question you may have about it.

The event was a great success and I can see that it’s extremely popular with GoEngineer’s clients. The place was full of excited engineers and professionals, happy to be there, networking and learning something new together. I spied a few familiar faces and spent some time reacquainting with some folks I had met at previous SolidWorks events.  There was plenty of delicious food, coffee for the morning people and even prizes. One lucky fellow went home with a brand new iPad!

Dang! I wish I had taken my camera with me. I tried to improvise using my phone, but this is the best shot I could get. 

If you have the chance, I strongly recommend that you attend one of these events. Ask your local reseller about them and get yourself in the attendance list. It’s really a great experience. I want to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Lon Hudson for inviting me to the Roll Out. I had a great time.

Oh, before I forget. While at the roll out yesterday, I learned about this blog, www.goinnovatenow.com, written by Sam Scholes and Brock Vasic, both of them employees at GoEngineer. They blog about topics relevant to engineers and designers, cool products and companies, and, of course, SolidWorks. Go check them out. 

And I believe I had already told you about their channel on YouTube, didn’t I? In case you forgot, check them out at http://www.youtube.com/user/goengineer . Make sure to subscribe and visit often because they’re constantly adding new materials.

You will first be asked to add the linear motor, then the rotary motor. If you follow the tutorial step by step, however, you will notice that the animation doesn’t work after adding the rotary motor to the study. It took me a while to figure it out, but it so happens that there is a lock mate in the Mates folder of the wheel component that needs to be suppressed for the wheel to be able to rotate.

Suppress this mate locally, and the animation will work as expected.

Ah, but also make sure to add  concentric and coincident local mates between the wheel and the Spindle_Acc components, otherwise they won’t look like they’re moving together at all.

One more thing to watch out for in that same tutorial is a rack and pinion mate that allows the steering wheel to move the suspension. This mate is suppressed from the beginning.  After the two motors have been added and several key points have been set to drive the movement of the steering wheel using an angle mate, the tutorial tells you to unsuppress this mate and calculate the animation. If you do that, however,  the animation won’t work anymore. At first, I feared I had made an awful mistake (it happens), so I checked animation that was already completed in the Built Parts folder and the rack and pinion mate was suppressed there, as well. I unsuppressed it and the animation no longer worked.  Thinking about it, it kind of makes sense; as the steering wheel rotates, it transmits movement to the suspension system through the rack and pinion mate. Adding a linear motor to drive the movement of the same suspension system creates conflict. You can’t have both if you are going to drive the movement of the steering wheel using the angle mate. It’s the rack and pinion mate or the linear motor, but not both.

Anyway, I hope this is useful for those studying from this book. And those of you who aren’t… What are you waiting for?  

I graduated over a year ago and have been struggling to keep my skills sharp (or at least keep them from not dulling too much). To do this, I need the software. While I found full time work, a full license is a little beyond my reach. Are there other, cheaper (and legitimate) options I’m overlooking, apart from the somewhat dubious “have a friend still in college register a student edition” route?

Only two people answered to this. One of those who answered agreed with him that it was, indeed, hard to do, specially while unemployed. The other person simply suggested perhaps he should enroll in a class at a community college. 

Well, I don’t know but I don’t quite agree with this “solution”. I don’t think it solves anything at all, actually.  Why? To begin with, because this guy probably already conquered the basics, which is usually what is taught at those classes. What he wants now is the ability to practice and increase his knowledge; he needs to grow and go beyond the basics, beyond the introductory tutorials, beyond the textbook. But how can he do it if he doesn’t have the tool? 

While I do think we’re always learning and, in some way, students all our professional life, I don’t think it’s realistic to expect that users should really be perpetually in school in order to be allowed access to the tool they need to grow.  What if you can’t find a way to afford enrolling in school, even if you aren’t unemployed? What if you simply can’t find the time to physically be there? What if your boss doesn’t see the need for you to take a class with your VAR?  So, shame on you for not wanting to grow? I don’t think so. 

Do you read blogs? Watch videos on YouTube? Well, it can only help so much, but it you don’t have a chance to practice what you’ve read or seen, then it’s really not going to take you very far. It would be like trying to learn how to fly a plane by simply watching videos of a guy flying it but never actually setting foot inside a plane or even a simulator. Would you let such a “pilot” fly you to your destiny? I mean he’s got like 400 hours of “flight watching” on YouTube.  I think I’d pass.

The worst of all is that this has the potential of becoming a vicious cycle for professional unfulfillment. If you have a crummy job doing repetitive and boring tasks and you would like to be the one tackling more interesting assignments, you need to grow and perfect your skills, you need to explore those areas of the software that you usually don’t even touch… but you don’t have the tool to do it in your own time and you can’t do it during working hours because that’s not what your boss is expecting from you. Some bosses might want you to grow… not all expect you do it on their time or with their money.

If you are unemployed or a career changer, then you need better skills to get yourself a new job. You need to have really sharp skills to compete with others that are also aiming for that job, specially in this economy, but how can you get those skills if the only way to access the software is through becoming a student again or coughing up a large sum of money for a commercial license? Can you cough it up? Try harder… harder… it may come out… no? Oh well…

I know, some of you may think this is really not such a big issue. “Hey, Gabi, there was that stimulus program not so long ago, remember?” Yes, I do remember. It was helpful. It was an awesome thing SolidWorks did for unemployed engineers all over the country, but it wasn’t enough. I’m telling you, 90 days is not enough. In the time I’ve been writing this blog, it’s the story I’ve been hearing over and over, from real people everywhere.

So, what to do about this? Personally, I think SolidWorks should follow the example of PTC  with Pro/Engineer Wildfire and allow non-students to purchase the student edition of SolidWorks, perhaps at a higher price than the one offered to students. See? PTC sells the personal student edition for like  $100 more than the student edition. They’re both the same thing and they are not for commercial use, but you pay $100 more or so if you’re not a student.  

I mean, I respect DS SolidWorks and I know they have their own reasons to do things the way they do, but I don’t see how it could mean them any harm to allow more people to learn and practice. I think it would actually benefit them. If more people have access to the tools they need to learn, the community of users becomes stronger and more users gain knowledge of those higher end tools that are also available and often overlooked.

What do you think? Am I dreaming too much?