SolidWorks World 2008, Planning My Breakout Sessions

SolidWorks World 2008 is almost here.  In less than two weeks we will all be off to San Diego, CA for the biggest, baddest SolidWorks User Group Meeting of the year.

I am working on planning what Breakout Sessions I will attend this year.  I have downloaded the Conference Program from the SolidWorks World 2008 website and will print out all 40 pages on Tuesday.  The program highlights all the main events of the conference and also gives the detailed synopsis of each of the Breakout Sessions.  I will use the pdf along with the Online Agenda to plan my attack for this years SolidWorks World.

My first SWW, 2006 in Las Vegas, I made it a priority to attend as many sessions as I could that focused on setting up SolidWorks and using SolidWorks in a network environment with multiple users.  I also was interested in the sessions on setting up one's hardware.  For those responsible for keeping your SolidWorks users up and running Greg Jankowski's CAD Managers Boot Camp on Sunday from 1:00 to 5:00 is a must attend session.  The boot camp in Las Vegas was chock full of info and gave me the information I needed. I went home knowing I had our SolidWorks engineering environment, at Auer, set-up right.

For the 2007 SWW in New Orleans my breakout session focus was on large assemblies and sheet metal.  As a stamping house we design sheet metal parts on a regular basis.  Also, we were starting to get into bigger design projects with our ballistic press automation lines.  Gerald Davis and Wayne Tiffany both have great sessions on sheet metal and both are presenting again this year in San Diego. Gerald is also doing a Hands-On session on Wednesday.

For SolidWorks World 2008 my breakout session focus will be on some of the features in SolidWorks that I do not use on a regular basis.  I will be looking to find out more about DriveWorks Express, PhotoWorks, SolidWorks Routing and also how to better utilize the Hole Wizard functionality through customization of the database.  I also want to sit in on Mark Biasotti's sessions on surfacing.   I will finalize my schedule tomorrow evening and will post the sessions I have finally decided to attend.

The session I am most looking forward to, and is on the top of my list, is Phil Sluder and Ed Eaton's session on Solving Your SolidWorks Problems, Wednesday at 10:30.  Among the many subjects that I am sure Phil and Ed are planning to cover they are going to take a look at the Punch Holder model that I have posted as a benchmark file.  I have a series of posts on this file and the benchmark in the Workstation Performance section of my blog.

Ed tells me he has been analyzing the model and has come up with some very good rebuild times in the big patterns with his older computer.  The model presents a great learning session for techniques that can be used to make your models more efficient and rebuild faster.  Ed and Phil will be sharing their techniques in their breakout session.

SolidWorks World is a highlight of my year.  The positive energy of the event with 4000 or so like minded SolidWorks geeks gets me fired up and starting off the new year right.  Looking forward to meeting you all in San Diego soon.

Cheers.....

Comments

[SolidWorks hero]

I plan to be at SolidWorks world this year for my first time.. and I am pumped to go :-)

[Steve Calvert]

"4000 or so like minded Solidworks geeks", that pretty much says it all.

See you there,

Steve