Design without boundaries comes alive at SEU15

Solid Edge University 2015 is in full swing in Cincinnati! John Miller opened the event welcoming our users, sponsors and partners and pointing out the many different ways that they can benefit from the event. John had a specific mention for the Greenpower academic program that encourages young people into design and engineering – the Greenpower program is going global in 2016.

Philip Norman presented what I can only describe as an “eyes wide open” approach to engineering using nature, art, mathematics and science as inspiration for the design of his modular robots. Philip has worked as an author, architect and artist before designing a new construction toy that used a much simpler array of parts than existing kits. The toy was turned down by a major toy manufacturer – but undeterred Philip used his design as the basis for a new range of modular robots that work in hazardous environments. As Philip concluded “Design inspiration is all around you in nature, art and science”. How true that is!

Microsoft presented their just launched Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book devices. Beautifully designed products that have the performace to support complex part and assembly design with Solid Edge. And Ken Hosch presented the new Catchbook application that takes advantage of these mobile devices enabling design ideas to be captured and turned into dimensioned sketches.

Dan Staples and Craig Ruchtie, helped by our partners Zuken, Quadrispace and DST then presented the advancements in ST8 and the wider Solid Edge portfolio. Several whoops were heard from the audience as new capabilities like the “like me” that copies features, the ability to apply welds to parts and copy them to multiple features, and new cable routing features were presented.

And Mark Parry from Majenta presented new capabilities to reverse engineer existing designs into Solid Edge. Mark used an excellent example of a kit car that today relies on the knowledge of an ageing workforce, knowledge that is not documented. Scanning the car has enabled the manufacturer to capture the design for future generations to enjoy, market their products more effectively and take adavantage of more advance engineering capabilities like running stress analysis on critical car components.