Key takeaways from SolidWorks World 2017

As the excitement of the 19th annual conference dedicated to the 3D design and engineering community (SOLIDWORKS World 2017) subsides, here are INTERNATIONAL METALWORKING NEWS FOR ASIA's top takeaways from the four days event of innovation, inspiration, and education.

Imaginative explorers

Anousheh Ansari, an Iranian-American engineer who, as the first female private space explorer, spent eight days aboard the International Space Station. She is also the co-founder and chairman of Prodea Systems, a platform for the internet of things.

Jason Silva, Media Artist, Futurist, Philosopher, and host of National Geographic’s hit TV series, Brain Games. He is also the creator of Shots of Awe, a short film series that explores innovation, technology creativity, futurism and the metaphysics of the imagination.

Silva’s passion and enthusiasm for the future is power-driven. His thirst for technology and influencing what’s to come felt similar to way many SolidWorks users feel about design and engineering. Silva was perfect for starting the event with a bang, and it provided the inspiration to keep the excitement going over the next two days.

The program also features a variety of customers, highlighting the cutting-edge nature of engineering, design and collaboration possible with SolidWorks technologies:

PRS Guitars

Paul Reed Smith and Jon Wasserman from PRS Guitars, with Mark Tremonti, guitarist of Alter Bridge and Creed, to discuss their collaborative design and development of the Mark Tremonti Signature guitar using SolidWorks.

The trio shared how they can easily iterate on guitar designs and quickly make changes based on artist feedback – which admittedly happens frequently in the world of custom guitars. Having the ability to iterate virtually saves time and frustration from the old way of building multiple instruments to meet end user demands. This was Mark’s first glimpse into the world of SolidWorks.

Freight Farms

Sustainability expert and social visionary Duane Elgin, with Jon Friedman, co-founder of Freight Farms, to discuss how the company modifies shipping containers to create year-round agriculture in any environment and empower local food production.

During his talk, Jon compared Freight Farms to SolidWorks. Essentially Freight Farms wants to be a platform to empower growers as SolidWorks is a platform for designers and engineers.

Freight Farms’ Leafy Green Machine is a 40-ft shipping container that uses a hydroponic system to grow produce. The system is connected to regulate the atmosphere so the food grows the same in Indiana as it would in India. The yield for the Leafy Green Machine is the equivalent of 1,000 heads of lettuce per week with only 20 hours of labour required for optimal growth.

Technology and companies like Freight Farms are especially important to Duane Elgin. He’s a sustainability evangelist and futurist who understands that human ingenuity is needed to address population increases and climate change. Duane joined Jon onstage and discussed how Freight Farms can address these problems by providing sustainable food to the masses and shielding growth against an unpredictable environment. The message from Duane is that humanity needs to cope with what we’ve created. Freight Farms is one way to solve problems in a time of transition.

Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy

Amir Abo-Shaeer, founder and director of the Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy, and a winner of the MacArthur Foundation’s “Genius Grant,” to explain how the next generation of physicists, engineers, and mathematicians are being cultivated today within our communities.

Dos Pueblos was founded upon the idea of creating an exciting and enriching community with a passion for learning and thirst for knowledge. The school takes a STEAM approach to education: Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Manufacturing. Students learn to use SolidWorks from day one and will leave school prepared for higher education or trades with four years of hands-on experience with machining. Another interesting aspect of Dos Pueblos is the inclusion of art. Artistry will continue to be important in any product. Dos Pueblos believes that mixing art and science enables students to have experience with multiple disciplines. Currently, 400 students are enrolled at the Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy and 50 percent are female.

Motiv Robotics

Motiv Robotics, a partner of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to discuss the design of advanced robotic systems for industrial applications, disaster relief, defence, and extreme environments. Rocket scientists Brian Zias, SOLIDWORKS Senior Technical Sales Manager, and Chris McQuin, Motiv Senior Electro-Mechanical Robotics Engineer, discussed how Motiv is heavily involved with the Mars 2020 project, which is sending a rover to Mars.

Chris shared perspectives on the complexities of designing for Mars exploration, including simulating for a thermal environment that fluctuates 200 degrees Celsius. Motiv also designs robots for earth, especially in the area of disaster recovery. After the Fukushima nuclear power disaster, the team was determined to help avoid secondary disasters like this in the future. How? Build robots capable of completing human tasks in areas not safe for humans. The robot, called the Robosimian, can climb rubble piles and autonomously scale walls.

According to Gian Paolo Bassi, CEO, SolidWorks, Dassault Systèmes, the community shares a passion for innovation, collaboration and design that is unique.

He added, “SolidWorks World fuses this unbridled energy with product development and technology strategies that are pushing the evolution of the internet of things, model based definition, additive manufacturing and other approaches.  It’s the place to be for innovators looking to connect with each other, learn new skills, and transform how products are designed, manufactured and supported.”

Finally, it’s hard not to leave SolidWorks World inspired and enthused by all the innovations you see and even more impressed by those that innovate, those that design, and those the engineer the products to bring them to market. The tech industry seems to accelerate a little more each year and change gets faster and faster. 2017 will be a break-out year for many technologies and it is truly exciting to imagine what might be developed in the next twelve months using SolidWorks.