Richards SolidWorks Blog

CIA, Top Secret, Area-51,

Well finally things are realeased from the bondange of sworn secrecy.  The truth be told about Area-51.   Download Area-51 Comes to Las Vegas. 10_ 7_ 2009

The Rallying Industry

SolidWorks and Inspirtech

    You got to love it when a plan comes together.  There are those that know of your problems in this economic down turn and want you to know that they are willing to help you.  Acting and thinking positive like a horse with a carriage or a cup with a saucer, is something that just clicks and takes little or no thought.  How about SolidWorks and Inspirtech?  Have you heard of this combo yet?  They have teamed up to help get you trained on some tools to put inside your tool box.  So read on;

 

Bad Enough, but:

By Richard Williams, 4/6/09

        Wow, believe me when I say that I know what it is like to be laid off, with bills that never stop coming in.  Been there and done that, so I know.  But you do have options and they are as many as there are types of engineers.  What can be done and what do we suggest that you try? 

1.   Join social networking sites and make as many contacts as you can.

2.    A time to study something you have been meaning to or are interested in.

3.    Relocate or travel away temporarily or permanently.

4.    Work on those ideas that you have had.

5.    Ride out the storm if you can but do not wait too long.

6.    Add more tools to your tool chest.

 

       It is the last one here #6, that I would like to spend just a little time on. Making yourself more valuable to employers by getting familiar with other tools that your industry is using is very well worth your time and effort.  Yes this is training and education but you should consider it a tool to learn.  Especially when you can get them free and I am not kidding you.  The Inspirtech Company which produces some of the very best in video tutorials for the SolidWorks program is being offered to all those engineers that can qualify for the free 90 day SolidWorks program offer.  You can find out more about this offer from the web site down below.  Unfortunately it is only being offered to those in Canada and USA.  But that might change in the future.  So stay tuned here. 

http://www.solidworks.com/sw/esp_eula.htm 

 

      Well, there are some free training videos that you can obtain from this SolidWorks web site but I strongly recommend that you take advantage of the Inspirtech free beginning videos offer too.  You can hook up with that free offer from:

http://www.inspirtech.com/   or just go to:

 

Register and learn.

http://inspirtech.com/index.php?option=com_registration&task=register&Itemid=122   

 

     There is nothing you can lose here by taking advantage of the free offers that will help you tremendously and increase your prospects of nailing down that next job.  So there are people out there that are working to help you.  Have a great one.

Artists; Visionaries; and the rest of us.

What Can SolidWorks Do for Artists and Visionaries in Schools and Elsewhere?

By Richard Williams, 9/15/08

             The world we live in is getting more dependent upon mechanical aided computer design people and all the related industries that come into play when we send out our creations to manufactures.  Whether what we create goes to a machine shop to be made out of metals or to an injection molding company that will build the parts and assemblies out of plastics, it is a very fast moving field.  We can also send our ideas out to the Rapid Prototyping industry to get a real 3D hard copy print out of our ideas. The competition out there is fierce and without a capable MCAD package like SolidWorks that can conceive ideas, create them digitally and even test them, before expensive prototyping is done, you are challenged at every step along the way.  What we are teaching our young people with SolidWorks is in essence a new language.  “If a picture is truly worth a thousand words,” then a digitally produced design is worth so much more because it can be viewed from every angle and full detail of its creation.  We can even look inside it.  This digital language transcends all other languages because everyone can see and learn about the creation they were sent.  Of course you only need a computer and an internet connection to see somebody’s ideas they shared with you in an eDrawing.  All of this happens at very fast speeds and even a virtual dialogue can commence back and forth in collaborative inputs from anyone, anywhere, at any time, in the world.  Amazing isn’t it.

Download can_solidworks_help_aritsts_and_visionaries_9_15_08.doc

What a Nice Feeling

Promoting SolidWorks has it's own rewards

                                                                               by Richard Williams 8/30/08

       As most of us SolidWorks bloggers realize we don't often get the kind of feedback that we would always like to have.  That feedback tells us how we are perceived on the world's news highways of information.  Whether it is a compliment or a complaint, I am sure we all like to hear about how we are doing in your eyes.  Many times when we push the button to publish some of our work we have no idea how it will be accepted and where it goes out into cyberspace and if anybody at all bothers to read it.

       I couldn't sleep tonight and as I often do in times like this, I do some computer work.  After booting up I downloaded the basket full of emails I get two and three times each and every day.  I was very pleasantly surprised when one of them was sent to me by a student's teacher from the Philippines.  I was asked by this teacher's student for more information about using Pasta to build bridges and other structures with.  Now I am by no means a great authority in building with pasta but I did build a bridge that many of you seemed to like and I published all of my work on that subject to the internet.  I received wonderful letters of support and interest in what I had done with Fettuccini Pasta.  :)   Thank you everybody.  But when you get a call for help from a student (I have had many of these lately) from faraway places like the Philippines, Switzerland, Lebanon, Chile and Texas, I stop everything in order to focus my efforts upon the needs of that young person.  I cannot express to you adequately enough what a tremendous feeling it is to help from my home office somebody that needs it.  It makes my very long days feel worthwhile.  When you write a blog such as this, the greatest reward I have ever gotten is when some young person tells me that they have read my article and was wondering if I could lead them to a data source or to send some information.  That is the job I have dedicated my life to doing now that I am retired and laid back.  Haha.  Actually, I have never been so busy in my whole life.  I love it.  Thanks to SolidWorks for giving me the chance to do this tremendously rewarding job.  Thanks again for all the new friends I have now from many different places in the world.  What a nice feeling.

Can SolidWorks Help me with this Wabbit?

The Waskal Wabbit is Gone.

                                                              By Richard Williams 5/30/08

            The Wabbit Sir, is gone.  No, no one ate him here but this is one you might not have heard of and it is true.  Since we moved here to Las Vegas, I have been having to deal with or adapt to a few different things and it does take some getting used to.  The weather is very nice most of the time but of course not all the time.  Desert winds constantly create more work for me in cleaning out the pool and thirsty birds sometimes drown in deep pools trying to get a much needed drink.  There is a birdbath for them now.  Scorpions are another item that needs to be dealt with but moslty harmless and there is always the trimming of bushes and palm branches to do.  That in itself is a never ending job.  My SolidWorks Solar Energy Experiments work extremely well here.  However, one job I never expected to have to do here, is to have a physical fight with a Mojave Desert Rabbit (or Small Kangaroo), who I affectionately call Mr. Wabbit Sir.  I am Elmer Thud, when it comes to this character and let me tell you why.  He is a real challenge to deal with and not just because of his exceptional size, which is almost my size, because I'm small and he is very big.  It seems like he took up residence here about the same time we did at our house in the Mojave desert region called Las Vegas.  He has been known to chase the dogs around here and his size could very well be the reason for this.  "I was weally brave one morning when I wook out the garbage cans to da stweet curb in the dark and we met each udder formally wight then and there for the first time."  I don’t know who spotted the other first but he stood up on his hind legs to challenge me and I stood my ground.  I was already on my feet then and seemingly looking at him eye to eye.  But I had a garbage can in my hand to, I was brave.  I would call it a standoff for our first meet with no obvious winner but we both judged each other for a long time.  He is a big wabbit one for sure.  To me he looks more like a small Kangaroo.  We have met like this many times in different areas of the yard and so far neither one of us has initiated the fight of all fights. 

            Two years ago my red seedless grape vine produced its very first bunch of red grapes.  I was so proud of them and decided to give it only one more day in the sun before picking them.  Apparently, Mr. Wabbit Sir, thought differently and harvested them that very day.  When I came out the next day to pick them, they were gone, totally gone, not one did he leave me.  Yes, I did have bird netting over them.  Okay, he won that one but to this day the fight between us has been brewing and soon to come.  Not only does he benefit from everything I plant around here but they are creatures of habit these wascal wabbits and to the tenth degree no less.  I'm serious and my lawn care guy proved it to me.  I asked him about the few brown patches on my otherwise very green lawn areas.  We have four separate pieces of lawn in our landscape and each one has its own distinct brown patches, large ones.  Anyway, Chris our lawn guy walked me over to the patches and kneeling down he showed me positive evidence of what caused those patches.  It wasn’t a fungus like I first thought but it was from our very own Mr. Wabbit Sir, deposits.  Mad was I now for what this wabbit was doing to my wawn.  The community association does not like these spots on these meticulously manicured lawns but my argument to them would be that to fix the lawn spots, they would have to allow me to eliminate the cause of them and that includes those that walk their dogs and those dogs that walk their owners that stop by my house and it is not to say hello.   Apparently, wabbit brains is a communicable disease at least in this community.  This brewing battle between  Mr. Wabbit Sir and me has been going on for quite some time now, at least three plus years that we have been here.  He is big enough to chase our bigger dogs around here so it is a battle that I have been preparing for in my workouts and one I have to win.  There will be Hasenpfeffer for me or free harvesting of all my crops by Mr. Wabbit Sir, if he wins.  One of us is going to win.  There is no way that I can catch him if he runs.  There might also be no way that he could catch me if I run.  We have been tolerating each other in a peaceful type of co-existence now for three and a half years but I realize that it will only be a matter of time and chance that we would have this monstrous animalistic fight with each other.

             Now I can report to you that the fight is over.  Indeed it actually never took place.  Mr. Wabbit, died on my lawn close to his favorite brown patch spot he loved so much.  I won without striking a blow.  I just simply had to outlive him and I was beginning to wonder about that.  I had to place him into a new plastic garbage bag, a weally big one of course and send him on a trip to the dumps for burial.  You cannot legally dig a grave here in the back yard and the ground is like cement anyway.  I kind of miss that wascal wabbit and the fight that we were destined to have someday but now we shall never know who would have won it.  This being Las Vegas, I would have given even odds on this bout.  I think I’m gonna miss him Mr.Wabbit Sir.  I am not all that convinced that this problem is over with.  You know what wabbits do.   I can only hope this is the end of this problem or SolidWorks and I will be designing a have a heart trap, a rather big one. Amen.