I’m sorry this post is so late but there were technical issues and pure laziness involved. Technical issues first: The $15 a day internet in the rooms at the Swan & Dolphin stunk. The wireless provided free wasn’t much better in the lobbies. After loosing most of a post on Monday I decided not to pay on Wednesday and just wait until I got home. My other technical issue was with my IPhone, during the live blog, twitter blinked and I couldn’t post. So I started keeping notes on the “TouchType” application. I saved several times and then……all my notes disappeared. {{DARN}} I found out on Saturday that the saves happen in different files and if you hit the “load” button it will scroll through what you have saved, so all my notes were actually still there, just in a different save file. So, here’s where the laziness kicked in. I have been enjoying being home with my family and just didn’t get around to writing the post. But, Here are the major highlights of Wednesdays General Session at SolidWorks World 2009.
Fielder Hiss opened Wednesday’s general session with a welcome and an introduction of Sponsor Don Richardson from Microsoft.
Mike North and Joe Grant, two of the guys from “prototype this” were the special guests for Wednesday. The came into the assembly on a rescue cart they designed on one of the shows. It was very hard to get a clear shot of Mike and Joe because during their presentation they both were in constant motion like kids with ADD and a sugar buzz. I finally got the next picture near the end.
On the show, both the mechanical and electrical systems are designed for what ever the challenge is. During the presentation they were trying to show the design process. One of the quotes and eventual theme they follow was “You don’t have to succeed to learn something”. “Sometimes failure is ok” which is alright in engineering because engineering is a path of discovery. Have fun with it.
After the ”prototype this” guys left the stage, the top ten list announcement was started by Bruce Holway the manager of product definition for SW. Bruce stated that SolidWorks has implemented over 70% of top ten from recent years. Brainstorm, which was an online community style web based forum, was used to create the top ten list. User group leaders from around the country were recognized and actually got to announce the top ten as voted on by the users. My new friend Randall Block (5th from the left) from the Happy Valley SolidWorks User Group got to name #5 (on-the-fly equation creation and editing). The next item on the agenda was the What’s new 2010. I won’t go into much detail but the list included such neat items as new view mates in assembly which works kinda like the isolate command but shows all the mated items based on what part you select and hides all others. Other things of interest were new mirror components optimization for components, multi-body sheetmetal, structural features like welds, updated dxf output and reference planes creation. I am looking forward to seeing the implementation of most of these items.
It’s hard to believe that the 3rd general session of SolidWorks World 2009 is over. I guess this leaves only one thing….looking forward to SolidWorks World 2010!
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Well, today was day 2 of SolidWorks World 2009. I had to ask myself, after yesterday could things get any better? With all the technical content going on in the sessions, SW wouldn’t dare have technical content in the general session….or would they? The session opened with the same really cool video as on Monday an then Fielder Hiss came out and opened up the show. He spoke about how great is was to have Richard Branson on Monday an then he introduced Jeremy Luchini and a video of everyone at the CSWP event from Monday night. Jeremy then introduced Yanack Trembly of Mega brands an they talked about the design intent of the NEO Shifters and how SW played a major part in the quick turn around of the design and getting the product to market. Several annimations of the different characters were shown. Man are those things neat. Fielder then introduced the keynote speaker who happened to be none other than Jon Hirschtick, former CEO and founder of SolidWorks. Jon started out by giving kudos to current SolidWorks management team by saying that they are the best in history of company. John then went on to discuss what he thinks are the future trends in technology.
Touch/motion like Iphone and other touch phones is one trend, the next is online applications such as online banking. He asked the question how about online CAD with hosted server space and applications. Neat futuristic idea. Next trend was video gaming technology such as real time rendering which one type is being used in SW 2009. The last technology trend Jon sees as important is 3D printing. He believes that this trend will continue to grow until engineers are using 3D prints like paper now. After this Jon showed a video excerpt from the new Iron Man movie where Tony Stark is designing Iron Mans suit in virtual 3D space. That would be really nice.
Jon then went into two customer video and live interviews. The first was with NewBalance shoes where their design process for the soles was discussed. Matt Dunbar was introduced and as he spoke with Jon he mentioned that he was wearing prototype shoes made in their engineering department. Really neat surfacing they are doing and especially since the SW tree typically has 1300-1800 features. The next video/interview was with Sony/Ericsson. Vision and market research including trends start 2 years in advance of product release. After they started using SW their design cycle time went down 75% and they product over 4000 rapid prototypes a year. Incredible stories and content. Thanks Jon for giving us what we need to hear.
When Jon left the stage Stephen Endersby was introduced and he started speaking about SW Simulation but was interrupted with game show music and this banner and a Sumo Wrestler:
Jeff Ray then rode out on a pink scooter:
The Sumo Wrestler then rode the scooter and then picked it up and smashed it on the stage:
After the last part of the SW Simulation demo, Fielder spoke about the special event and closed the session. I had several great sessions during the day including one on sheetmetal, an educational session, a PDM strategy session and a working with templates, formats and options session. I picked up several good tips and tricks during the sessions. Tomorrow is day 3 of the main event here at SolidWorks World 2009 and the opening should be good since SW lets the cat out of the bag about SW 2010. As I leave this post I’ll just give you the classic story book conclusion,
The END!
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All I can say is WOW! what a day. Monday started out with a bang here at SolidWorks World 2009. The facilities are great and so are the people. The general sessions are always fun when everyone crowds the door about 10 minutes before time to open them. Then it’s as if someone shot a bucket filled with water full of holes with birdshot when all the Solidworks dweebs, Sorry, ENGINEERS, filter into the room! It looks something like this:
Jeff Ray opened the session by giving a warm welcome and then proceeded to go through the Solidworks report card of itself based internal criteria. Several customer success stories were shared including one where a design team build a baby incubator out of spare automobile and motorcycle parts for use in developing countries. Then it was on to the feature presentation with guest speaker Sir Richard Branson of Virgin brand companies. The sit down interview was excellent as Jeff asked questions pertaining to current and past personal and corporate exploits. Richard exuded charm and confidence but was also very funny. From the stories he told I think he is also quite the practical joker. His latest concerns are with the environment and trying to convert the Virgin branded companies from “dirty” fuels to more “clean” fuels. He was recently on a test flight of one of his 747’s running on blended clean bio fuels. Unlike many men in his position, he has achieved some extraordinary goals and has managed to retain a reachable feel to his person. It was great to have him as a guest.
The rest of the day was also a hoot as I attended Wayne Tiffany’s sheetmetal presentation, a hands on session for Enterprise PDM, Matt Lombards workflow for 2009 and another hands on Workgroup PDM session. Boy what a full day. And if that wasn’t enough, the Certified SolidWorks Professional (CSWP) event was held from 7-10pm near the hotel. We were treated to great food including roasted turkey and pork and mashed taters (sorry for the southern). On each table were 2 sets of ICoaster parts from one of the sponsors Mega brands. We were supposed to have a contest by teams to build but as engineers, geeks, dweebs and what ever else you want to call us, got to looking at the parts, we ended up building them ourselves. And having a great time doing it! Special thanks to the certification team that put on such a great event. Thus ends day 1. I’ll be back again tomorrow for another update. {{Preview}} former Solidworks CEO Jon Hirschtick will be headlining the general session.
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