As you are working through the Engineering program here at NTI, note that you will run into instances where you are just stumped on how to do things or even where to get more information to solve problems.

When it comes to any CAD modeling system students should begin to use the many online user forums for help.

There are many reasons to do this:

· Tech Support has the potential of taking a long time

· The people on these forums are using the CAD systems every day. They not only understand how to solve the problem but also provide great heads up info.

· The many solutions the members offer help you to look at SolidWorks solutions from many angles.

· This is a way to expand your industry network worldwide.

· …the list goes on.

Below is a great launching pad to the virtual world of SolidWorks. It has a forum, links to other forums and engineering tools as well as links to the ever growing blog & podcasts community. As a member you can set your profile to send daily digests of the community’s activities for the day. It also has a calendar that members can post Local User Group meetings, conventions, seminars, etc.

Members are encouraged to post at will. I still find that responses on this forum are generally faster that technical support and I have generated some pretty useful contacts.

I encourage the NTI engineering program students to sign up and make it a routine of visiting the site, posting questions and adding to the many areas. By making this routine now you will be building a fantastic habit that will no doubt serve you well in industry.

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Click to join solidworks

Hello All,

I am looking for some real world projects for my Engineering Drafting & Design students. Does anyone have any projects that will include research, computations, analysis and modeling? These can be projects that you released several years ago, are not going to work on, or you just find them cool.

Also I am working on a semester long project like a go-kart, alternative fuel vehicle, robot, etc… that will cover the many different tools of SolidWorks as well as get them working together in teams to get the project done.

Anyhow, all of these project my students are responsible for presenting the project specifications (Customer Market, size, weight, movement…) to the rest of the class and ask the audience for ideas (Brainstorming). Then they will begin their designs with periodic update presentations. Their final presentation will include their designs, testing results and hopefully if I can get some help from area manufacturers, prototypes.

Thanks!
Chris

As students go through our CAD courses here at NTI they should remember that CAD terminology does not fly with other members of an organization.  The CAD industry has done a very poor job in standarizing its language so that marketing, managers, human resources, etc… can understand what CAD users are talking about.  This limits communication that is vital to successful project/product launches or even the hiring of useful staff to an organization.

To that end CAD users must remember that they have gone through extensive training to understand the CAD tools they use day in and day out.  The rest of the organization has not.  When it becomes time to discuss projects, issues or even what they are working on leave the CAD terms at the door. 

 Terms I am refering to are, but not limited to: any name given to a particular CAD function (Loft, sweep,…),  any term used to describe the interface (feature manager tree, graphics interface,…) so on and so forth. 

 CAD users must speak to others in the organization at their level.  When discussing a “Lofted Feature” break this down to it’s primary components; maybe something like “…this feature is a blending that starts as a rectangular shape that tranistions to a circular shape to provide…”.  this is much easier for the non-CAD users to digest than, “…here I LOFTED a rectangular profile to a circular profile…”  here a non-CAD user might think you are talking about the shape of a room (Loft).

 More to come…..