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Posts Tagged ‘training’

Hi everyone! I’ve been keeping a close eye on the site statistics, to try and figure out if my latest “experiment” had any future at all. I’m happy to see that several people  have already downloaded the pdf file and examples on easy surfacing techniques that I put up  a few days ago. I haven’t heard any feedback from those that downloaded, but I  hope they did find the information useful! 

In the past, several readers had already asked me if I could provide more detail than that allowed by a blog post’s size and format. Many people have been asking for step-by-step procedures and formal tutorials with example files included. I had shied away from attempting that approach, however, because I didn’t want to seem pompous, you know, like I was pretending to be what I’m not: and expert telling others what to do or how to do it right.  I am no expert! Then again, if you think about it, nobody can really claim to be an expert in anything. We are all learning here and whoever thinks he/she knows everything there is to know is foolishly wasting away a great opportunity for growth.

Anyway, philosophical views aside, last Tuesday, while I was at the SWUGN Summit, getting ready to do my presentation and talking with other SolidWorks users, I realized that most people are actually very open to the idea of other users sharing useful information with them. They don’t see you as pompous if you do. If you have anything useful to contribute, they’ll be happy to take it. And a lot of users, especially those that are in great need of learning fast,  really dig tutorials and step by step examples. So, with that in mind, I added a page called Downloads and uploaded thee  my first tutorial in pdf format. I hope to add more tutorials and files with time, always free, of course, and the best thing is that they can be about just pretty much anything that comes to mind, even if it’s not something I’m learning right at this moment, and they can be as short or long as needed. This, of course, doesn’t mean that I won’t continue to blog about what I’m doing or learning right now. I always blog as I go, you know that.

So, what do you think of that? I would like to see some comments. Do you think it’s a good idea? What kind of things would you like to see there?  Where are you, people? How come lately I get more comments from my regular spammers than I do from my regular readers? LOL

There’s also a couple more things I wanted to mention for those of you looking for more information and learning resources right now.   First of all… For the very beginners, my fellow blogger and friend, Alex Ruiz, has just come up with a really nice book  “SolidWorks 2010: No Experience Required“.  I actually had the pleasure to work with him and help him complete three of the chapters for the book. It was a great experience, but no, I don’t get comissions or royalties, so don’t think I have a secret agenda.  This is a very nice book for the beginner user and student and Alex put his heart and soul into this volume; he even prepared materials for teachers and a companion website to provide the readers with help and more content. Check it out!

This is also the time of the year when all sorts of learning resources become available. If you are going to buy, take advantage of the offers. For instance, with the coupon code SWFUND10launch you can receive a $20 off  your purchase of the SolidWorks 2010 training from Inspirtech. I checked out what’s new and improved in their materials and I must say I was very impressed. Among other things you’ll find that now you can access the training from the Task Pane, plus  plenty of review exercises and questions to test your knowledge. Again, I’m not getting any commission or payment for passing this info to you.

For those looking into learning more complex stuff, such as surfacing, for instance, IGetIt  has just released some new courses. I’m just telling you this because I got a newsletter from them not so long ago.  I don’t have a coupon code for this one, though, but I’m sure they may be having some sort of offer going on, so why not ask?  Also check out the video lessons offered by Solid Professor and Matt Lombard’s series of books on SolidWorks.

There’s actually so much out there about SolidWorks, I could never list it all here. Please, feel free to add to the list if you know any other good books, websites, videos, etc. And, please, keep those comments coming!

While at Concord, MA, I had the pleasure of chatting for a while with Certification Specialist Mike Pucket, who is also a friend of mine.  This wasn’t planned to be an interview or anything remotely similar, by the way, just a friendly chat over lunch. However,  I must admit I didn’t miss the chance to ask him a few questions about the certification process, since it’s a common concern among those that read my blog, and that’s how I learned that the SolidWorks certification process, the CSWP-CORE test to be more precise, is about to go through a major transformation that will make it more meaningful to users in search for a way to demonstrate their proficiency with the software, as well as for employers in search for a reliable tool to make sure they’re hiring the right guy/gal for the job.

As it was mentioned in the past by some other blogger and even some people in the forums, up until now you could’ve probably solved the CSWP test using any other 3Dmodeling software.  This is because the features needed to model the parts and assemblies in the test were simple features non-exclusive of SolidWorks and all you had to do was to model them correctly according to the instructions provided and produce the right value for the mass properties of the part or  assembly in question. But if you can do this with any other software then it doesn’t seem as very meaningful as a measure of your SolidWorks skills, does it? That’s precisely what some people have been pointing out over and over in the past.

Well, it’s all about to change! The CSWP test as you knew it is about to be replaced with a new and improved version that, I believe, will prove to be more meaningful as a measure of your SolidWorks skills than the previous one. 

Among the changes introduced to the test you’ll find that now you will be asked to download SolidWorks files during the test and make some modifications to them, always according to instructions. This is why now you’ll need to be running SolidWorks 2008 SP3.1 or higher, otherwise you won’t be able to open the files.  You’ll also find that the images and instructions provided with each question are now clearer and include more details, as well as several orthogonal views of the part or assembly, to help you avoid any confusion.  These images, for instance, were taken from the sample exam document for the new test.  Don’t worry; this sample test will be available soon once the new test has been officially released.

I’ve been told by Mike and Certification Specialist Avelino Rochino, that the test has been completely redesigned, with all new questions that will require from the user a deeper level of understanding of the different tools available in SolidWorks, thus making the test more relevant than ever before. Now, please, don’t be scared! This doesn’t mean that the test has been made more difficult or even impossible to pass; it’s just been revised and transformed to make it a better measure of your skills with SolidWorks. As a matter of fact, you’ll even be given more time to complete it!

The new test can be taken as a non-segmented test that will now be three hours and forty minutes long, or in three segments of forty to ninety minutes long each. The advantage of the new segmented format is that if you fail any of the segments, you would only need to repeat that one segment.  The scores you obtain in any of the segments you do pass are kept for you, and once you pass all three segments you will receive your CSWP certification.  You will also be able to take each segment as many times as you would need to for free.  However, there is a waiting period of 30 days between reattempts of any one segment.  So, for example, if you fail Segment 1, you can take Segments 2 and 3 right away but you would need to wait 30 days to attempt to take Segment 1 again.

Here is a listing of the new segments and basically what will be covered on each.  
 
Segment 1: (90 Minutes)

 
 
•         Create a part from scratch

•         Use dimension links and equations to aid in modeling

•         Use of equations to relate dimensions

•         Update of parameters and dimension sizes

•         Mass property analysis

•         Modification of geometry on initial part to create a more complex part.  

 

Segment 2: (40 Minutes)

 

•         Creating configurations from other configurations

•         Changing configurations

•         Mass properties

•         Changing features of a part that is given to you

 

Segment 3: (80 Minutes)

 

•         Creating an assembly

•         Adding parts to an assembly

•         Doing collision detection when moving a part in an assembly

•         Mates

•         Replacing a part with another part in the assembly

•         Creating a coordinate system

•         Using a coordinate system to do mass properties analysis

 

The new test will be officially released very soon.  Although neither Mike nor Avelino mentioned anything about it, I’m hoping that SolidWorks will come up with some sort of promotion to give users coupons, discounts or a free try to the new test.  

As I mention in my last post, I was encountering a series of issues and strange behavior when running some examples in Basic Motion. While I’m still waiting for what SolidWorks developers may have to say about this, I was very lucky to hear from someone that really knows his stuff when it comes to Animation and SolidWorks Motion.  Jim Boland, who does not represent SolidWorks Corp., but has worked as a contractor for SolidWorks for many years in the development of training materials, including the original Animator training manual, took a look at my arbor press example and made a few comments about the issue that I find really interesting and think may be useful to others, as well.  As I said before, these are Jim Boland’s thoughts and do not speak for SolidWorks Corp. or the software developers, but you may learn a thing or two from them. Trust me! So, here it goes…

What made me contact you was that the Arbor Press video you made was right along the lines of what I’m doing in many of the case studies in the book in that it shows multiple ways of achieving the desired results.  In all the years of teaching SolidWorks, I always get the standard question of “What’s the right way to do this……?”  My response has always been the “right way” is whatever way allows you to achieve your design intent and the “wrong way” is what keeps you from meeting the design intent.  That said, among the many “right ways” some are better than others because they are easier to solve, more flexible to change, etc.

After just attacking the problem of the contacts in the Arbor Press head on, I finally took a step back and looked at the broader picture, so here are some thoughts. 

• Why would you ever want to use Basic Motion instead of Animation for this video?  Over the past 9 months, Jindrich and I have had lots of discussions about the three products and the correct use of each.  If you look in the SolidWorks Motion book, there is a section on page 225 about Kinematic Systems vs. Dynamic Systems. To help clarify this issue, I’ve spent some time in the new version of the book talking about this difference and the fact that as a general run, you use Animation for Kinematic systems and Basic Motion for Dynamic systems. The Arbor Press is a Kinematic system because for every position of the rotating shaft, there is one, and only one, position for every other part. Always remember that our goal is to create an animation, NOT an analysis.  If I use Animation instead of Basic Motion, it can be done in half a dozen different ways in a matter of seconds and I can be off to the next task.
• One confusing comment in the Help and tooltips is that you get a more realistic result with Basic Motion over Animation.  I think that’s a simplification in that it is true for Dynamic systems but not for Kinematic systems.  Look closely at the case with the linear motor.  While motion stops at contact, there is visual penetration, which is unrealistic. In a simulation run, that’s expected because we are using a mesh to define the boundary and material properties are considered, so it is OK.  In an animation it’s not OK, but I can easily fix it in an animation by turning off the drive motor at the correct time or drive the motion with a distance mate.
• What do we expect the results to be when using Basic Animation with a motor driving and Contact between the table and rack pad?  Besides the two situations you did, where you use the rotary motor and linear motor, I also did two other studies where in one case I used the rotary motor but replace the rack and pinion mate with contact between the two gears.  In the other I used a double rack where a linear motor drove the first rack which drove the pinion which drove the second rack.  There were three different results.
  • Rotary motor and rack and pinion mate.  Problem solves but does not stop at contact.
  • Linear motor, no mates involved.  Problem solves and stops at contact.
  • Rotary motor with gear contact.  Solution stops (fails) at contact and timeline shows in red.
  • Linear motor with double rack and pinion. Solution stops (fails) at contact and timeline shows in red.

 

The question is which is correct?  I would think that the third and fourth cases are correct as we have an over defined system.  The motor is told to keep driving but the contact prevents it.  Kind of like putting a coincident and a non-zero distance mate between two faces.  It cannot solve both cases simultaneously. Then the question becomes, if the third and fourth cases are correct, why does the linear motor case you did solve without error?  Simple answer is I don’t know.  That’s what the developers will have to tell us.

• When Basic Motion is used with a Dynamic system, contact is normally the result of a component rolling on another, or impact where both components are still free to move.  When Basic Motion is used for a Kinematic system, we run into a problem because the parts are not free to move after collision.  I think this is what gives us the two types of errors, either contact is ignored or the solution fails.
• If we were doing an analysis, we wouldn’t use a motor unless it had a control to turn it off at contact or at some load.  Otherwise either the motor would burn out at contact or the gears would fail.  In reality, we would define the analysis with a force rather than a motor.  In that case the contact should stop the motion properly.

 

This is the hard part for me. I really wish I had more coupons to give to each one of you that entered the giveaway, but sadly I don’t.  Five winners were chosen randomly from all the comments and emails received and they are:

David Walker

Mahir Abrahim

Mark (It didn’t say much more than Mark, but it’s the only Mark that entered, so, yes, it’s you Mark)

SteveF

Prasad (same here, no other Prasad)

The winners will be contacted shortly and we’ll get the ball rolling. Congratulations to those that won and thanks to all that entered for participating! And also thank you to DS SolidWorks certification team for making this possible!

That’s right! I’m giving away ten coupons for a free SolidWorks certification test. Five will be given to readers of this blog and the other five to readers of SolidWorks para Todos, my blog in Spanish.  Now the really neat thing is that once you win one of these coupons you can actually choose which of the five certification tests available you want to take:

• CSWP-Core Modeling Specialist: (8,329 certified professionals worldwide)
• CSWP-Advanced Sheet Metal: (457 certified worldwide so far)
• CSWP-Advanced Surfacing: (61 certified worldwide so far)
• CSWP-FEA (Simulation): (35 certified worldwide so far)
• CSWA (Education): (8,086 certified worldwide and growing every minute)

Usually, you would have to pay up to $100 dollars to take a certification test, but today ten lucky readers will have it for free!

You can find more information about each of these tests and what you need to know in order to pass by visiting the SolidWorks Certification Homepage.  

Let me tell you, I’ve taken and passed both the CSWA and CSWP-core exams, and I’m currently preparing for the Advanced Sheet Metal test.  I see obtaining that certification as an important milestone in my learning process, as a way to have something to show for all the effort I’ve put in training myself, and as a “secret weapon” that can even open a few doors when it comes to job search. Last year, for instance, when a local reseller called me about a job as an Applications Engineer, they told me that one of the things that made my resume stand out from a list of possible matches for that position was precisely that I was a CSWP. I didn’t apply for that position because it wasn’t a good match for my own crazy life back then, but see? Right there, there was a job and all because I was a CSWP!

And I’ve heard that the certification process has been greatly improved ever since I took those two tests. Now it’s even easier than ever to access the certification center to take the exam and also to access information about your results and other certifications previously obtained. And if you manage a team of users, you can set up certification tests for all of them and even track their progress.

OK, so this is how you can get the free test… First I thought about making you guys design the perfect pet door for me. See, I have this little Chihuahua mutt that keeps soiling my carpet, and I bought a pet door that was supposed to work fine with my sliding glass door to the backyard… Err… Never mind that! All you have to do is leave a comment here saying, in your own words, why you want to get certified. That’s it! Very simple! The winners will be chosen at random from all the entries. Hurry up! Winners will be announced by Tuesday 21^st at 11:00 am PT.  You can also send an email or use the contact form, just remember to use a valid email address so I can contact you back and give you information about how to redeem your coupon for the free test!

Good luck!