Engineering Education for the Mechanically Inclined

Stand out from the crowd with Certification

Simply getting a degree is not enough to get ahead any longer. Getting the valuable application experience of being involved in a student teams will give you an advantage in finding the work that you will enjoy.

In the current highly competitive environment it is a good idea to get every advantage you can. Certification can be the differentiator that will get you the job that you want. Being certified shows that you not only know the theory but can use the tools to practice the trade and this can be an important distinction that can open doors for you.

Right now you can view the certification preparation classes for Autodesk University 2011 Virtual to learn more about the process and the things you need to know to pass the test. You can view the classes by going here and select the class or classes that you’re interested in.

The products that are covered include:

AutoCAD® 2012
AutoCAD Civil 3D® 2012
Autodesk® Revit® Architecture 2012
Autodesk 3ds Max® 2012
Autodesk Maya® 2012
Autodesk Inventor® 2012

I cannot overstate the opportunity that having access to these materials and Certification offer. Take advantage of it before someone else gets your dream job.

Calling all cars! …and bikes, and canoes, and bridges –Part 2

Are you a student on a team or a faculty advisor for one? If so I have something that you really must check out.

SAE International and Autodesk are sponsoring a webcast event; Winning with Autodesk on Thursday, October 6th at 7 PM U.S. Eastern Daylight time.

While this webcast will focus on tools used primarily on the SAE sponsored these tools can be used for any Mechanical design or engineering project. This benefits secondary teams as well as collegiate.

We will be reviewing 2D conceptual design tools, complex freeform surfacing, 3D CAD, FEA, CFD, dynamic analysis, creating metal frames, electrical wiring diagrams and 3D routing, engineering based machine component design, and all of it will be delivered in less time than it will take to get pizza delivered.

Tell your friends, parents, children, pets, and even complete strangers to register for this webcast and see how YOU can win with Autodesk!

Help with your homework

Sorry, I know it’s a little late for this semester but I would like to offer to help you see how you can make the CAD models for your lessons.

What I would really like to do is to help you see different ways to construct parts so that you can see the value of experimentation with the CAD tools. Creating the correct geometry does end up being the bottom line but exploring different ways of creating it can offer insight into ways of “seeing” designs in your future differently.

I’ve created a few examples of some work for a class in an MET program in the Midwest but I’d really like to help students from all over understand what possible.

Please send scans or digital data to me and I will put together a video for the site as quickly as I can to help you see at least one way of building your lessons. Don’t be shy!

The Inventor secret EVERY student should know…

  So, you downloaded Inventor (yeah, I know, it’s big; but it will be worth it) and you’ve installed it on your home computer or an older laptop and you’re experiencing an occasional crash. Rather than tell you that’s a special feature we’ve built into return you to your desktop without having to tell Inventor to close your files I will tell you what the problem most likely is. Your graphics card.

  Before you do anything look at your system information and find out what graphics card you presently have. Then go to www.inventor-certified.com/graphics and see if there is a certified driver for you equipment. Note that a certified driver may older than your current driver. If you don’t have a card that offers a certified driver move to the next phase.

  If you have an older PC at home you could upgrade your video card but it’s a little difficult to do that with an older or non-workstation class laptop. Now this solution isn’t a cure all. If your Operating System isn’t up to the requirements or you have only a small amount of RAM you could still run into problems. With that said most of the systems I’ve worked with that have had issues I was able to correct with a few clicks of the mouse.

  Let’s try this:

1. First Open Inventor
2. Go to the Ribbon’s Tools tab > Application Options > Hardware tab
3. On the Hardware tab select checkbox next to Software Graphics
4. Click OK to apply the change and close the dialog
5. For extra assurance close and restart Inventor
6. What you’ve done to your system is disabled Inventor’s direct connection to the graphics hardware and drivers. Instead Inventor will send information on what it needs to display to to OS and it will communicate with the hardware much like any other Windows application.

  Inventor’s functions like Pan, Zoom, and Orbit may be a little choppier than before but it’s a small price to pay for stability and the access to incredibly powerful tools on a modest computer.

It’s official! I’m Certifiable and you could be too; for free!

For the past several years I’ve been an Autodesk Inventor Certified Professional.

Having this certification has been a tremendous asset and has opened up opportunities for me to share my passion for Inventor and the other applications the support the Autodesk Digital Prototyping philosophy.

You will need to act quickly but I promise the price will never be lower.  Please take advantage of this tremendous opportunity to show the world what you know and make a statement about what it means to be Certifiable!

Open the Doors to Certification – It’s Free!

We are excited to announce the first ever, 8 city, Autodesk® Certification Roadshow. We are especially promoting Autodesk Inventor at these shows. Other Autodesk Certification products include: AutoCAD, Civil 3D, Revit Architecture, and 3DS Max Design. As you know,  Autodesk certifications are a reliable validation of your skills and knowledge, and can lead to accelerated professional development, improved productivity, and enhanced credibility for you and your employer.

Certification is one step that is critical to personal and professional success!

Event Details

Southern Polytechnic State University

October 26, 2010

9:00am – 4:00pm

Continuing Education
1395 South Marietta Parkway

Bldg 200  Ste 234
Marietta, GA 30067

Pratt Institute

October 28, 2010

9:00am – 4:00pm

School of Professional Studies
144 West 14th St. Room 509
New York, NY 10011-7300

Moraine Valley Community College

November 2, 2010

9:00am – 4:00pm

9000 W. College Parkway
Palos Hills, IL 60465

Salt Lake Community College

November 4, 2010

9:00am – 4:00 pm

CAD Applications Training Center
9750 South 300 West
Sandy, UT 84070

British Columbia Institute of Technology

November 8, 2010

9:00am – 4:00pm

555 Seymour Street
Vancouver, British Columbia
V6B 3H6, Canada

San Francisco State University

November 10, 2010

9:00am – 4:00pm

Downtown Center
835 Market Street, 6th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103-1901

Austin Community College

November 11, 2010

9:00am – 4:00pm

CAD Learning Center RM3213
11928 Stonehollow Drive
Austin, TX 78758

Honolulu Community College

November 19, 2010

9:00am – 4:00 pm

Drafting and Technology Department
874 Dillingham Boul
Honolulu, HI 96817

Key Benefits of Certification

• - Gain an industry recognized credential that proves your skill level
• - Use the Autodesk Certified Logo
• - Display your Autodesk Certified certificate
• - List your name in the Autodesk Certified Professionals database

Autodesk Open Doors Registration

You can visit the Autodesk® Open Doors website to find the most up to date event registration information. At out Autodesk® Open Doors to Certification event, you can test your skills on the Autodesk software releases for 2010 and 2011, and discover new opportunities to your career, be more productive, and increase your value overall as a professional.

Preparation Options

Make sure to visit  www.autodesk.com/certification so you can download your test roadmap prior to attending our event.  Contact your local ATC for Certification Prep classroom and online training options www.autodesk.com/atc

The Associate level test is a one hour timed exam while the Professional level exam is 1.5 hours in length.

Next Steps

Download your certification roadmap at: autodesk.com/certification

Important Link: www.autodesk.com/opendoors

Questions? Contact: opendoors@autodesk.com

A quick start for Students using Inventor in a lab environment

[This is specifically for students who need to be able to save their work to a flash drive but the pathing considerations apply to anyone in a lab environment where you' cannot consistently use the same machine every day. Just replace the concept of a flash drive with a mapped network drive.]

  Quick question. Have you ever created an assembly using a fastener or other component from the Content Center and the next time you go to open it Inventor isn’t able to locate those pieces?

  To use the Content Center consistently you need to know where the Content source files are and you need to be able to tell Inventor where to place the data for the parts that you’ve used so it can find it again. This is done in the Project File.

Chances are if you look a the active Project File on your school’s lab computer it is just listed as ‘Default.ipj’. In the following steps you will learn how to make sure all of the data you create or consume is where you need it to be.

1. Start Autodesk Inventor
2. In the Get Started tab find the Launch panel and select Projects
3. At the bottom of the Projects dialog select New
4. Select New Single User Project
5. Give the Project File a name. For our Example I will use ‘Classwork’
6. In the Project (Workspace) Folder space I will enter the drive name and the name of a folder that I want created on my flash drive named Classwork.
7. Click OK to create the Project File. You may have to confirm the creation of the folder on the flash drive as well.
8. Double click on your new Project name in the top panel to activate it.

  At this point you have created a new project file. Inventor knows where to find the Content Center data source information from a setting in the Application Options but it places data that you’ve used based on a setting in the Project file. This default is on the hard drive of the computer you’re using Inventor on. If you move from one computer to another your bolts, washers, etc. are still on the hard drive of the other computer. Now you will set your Project file so that anything you use from the Content Center travels with you.

1. With your new Project File active expand the Folder Options area in the lower portion of the Projects dialog.
2. Select the ‘Content Center Files’ row.
3. After a moment the current path will be displayed.
4. Highlight the existing path and enter:   .\Content Center Files
5. Press Enter to accept the new value
6. Save the change to the Project File
7. Click Done to close the dialog

  In a project file a period in the path represents that path where the Project File is found. This acts as a shortcut or alias. A folder has now been created under my Classwork folder named Content Center Files. Now when I place a bolt into an assembly it will be put there. When I go to save my work now it will automatically want to place it on my flash drive.

Now every time you go to a new computer you will have to Browse for you Project file but when you come back to a computer you’ve used before it should be on the list in the top of the dialog.

If everyone in a class agrees to a Project File path and name you won’t have to change this every time or perhaps ever once its been done.

A new addition to the family

No, not a child but no less exciting (please don’t tell my kids I said that).

 Alias Design for Autodesk Inventor is now available for download on the Autodesk Education Community. This tool has the potential to allow students and faculty to explore a new connection between design and engineering.

Autodesk Inventor is an exceptional modeler and can create incredibly complex shapes by like all “3D CAD” systems you really need to have a good idea of what it is you’re creating before you begin modeling. On the other hand Industrial Design systems like the Alias Automotive application also on the Education Community allow you to radically change the model in ways you may not have anticipated that you would like to.

This is where the Alias Design for Autodesk Inventor comes in. It bridges the gap between the two allowing the engineer in Inventor to manipulate the part outside of the original vision for the Model. While not as flexible as Alias Automotive it uses tools that will be more comfortable for engineers. Industrial Designers will no doubt want to continue to use Alias Automotive and communicate using the linking to Inventor; but more and more often engineers are being called upon to make things look cool.

Please take a look at the links above to get preview of what is possible and then unleash that creative side! While, of course, staying safe and secure in the Inventor environment. It is the best of both worlds.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…

Want to know why? Follow this link and register to learn more: www.autodesk.com/webcast

You will not want to return this gift. No need to send a thank you card either, I know you care.

A coming Golden Age

I’ve been thinking a good deal lately about where  the latest engineering  technology is leading and I cannot help but conclude that it’s too amazing to fully express.

 If you step back a handful of years everyone was focused on advancing the speed at which certain functions of the software happen. You can probably still find some companies reporting that their application can open a file faster or can create a fillet with one less click or things of that nature. I was involved in that game for quite a few years but there’s definitely something different going on now. In the presentations that I do for classes or Student groups the discussion isn’t about what an individual piece of software can do but rather how one piece of software contributes to the bigger process. By focusing on the communication required between all the people involved and how those people think about their task one can discover an entirely different world of possibilities.

As a Mechanical Designer or Engineer I may have no desire to look at the development of a product in the same way that an Industrial Designer or Electrical Engineer does but if I intend to contribute to the process I need to be able to access and leverage their creativity and expertise. This is where I find myself in awe. As I develop my skills with different applications that Autodesk offers I am able to better appreciate the very different methodologies used by different people. This expanded “world view” along with my existing appreciation for the ease of sharing information between these different software systems is affecting me on a personal level. I was trained in the era of “Hand CAD” when the Electric Eraser was King and the scent of Ammonia from the Blue Line machine filled the air. In those days and for most of the years since truly collaborating with someone of a different discipline in your company wasn’t undesirable or unnecessary, it just wasn’t possible. Things really were tougher then and it wasn’t a good thing.

I believe we are about to enter a new Golden Age of Engineering. This hope for an incredibly bright future has led me in my lectures to tell students that choosing a career in engineering today is akin to deciding to pursue farming the year the tractor was invented. Uncalculated as their choice may be they will none the less experience an engineering environment that is faster, easier, better, smarter, and less expensive than ever. I do not have to understand why the Electrical Engineer thinks we need an 18ga. wire between those connectors, nor do I have to tell my 3D design package what diameter that wire has or even what pins it runs between. I can simply focus on how I need to route it through the product and create documentation of what needs to be produced in the factory or by a vendor. It’s easier for me and better for the product and the customer.

The technologies are also merging at a deeper level than mere communication. If Autodesk software is used to enable people hundreds or thousands of miles to experience incredibly realistic environments in game play simultaneously, than why should I wait for a rendering to see  what a product will look like to the customer? Why can’t I see what the end result will be while I’m creating it? If manufacturing needs to create assembly instructions why can’t they simply access my assembly information to create animations using tools far, far simpler than any CAD system?  Why should the artist who created a vision of what a product should look like be concerned that the beauty of their design be lost because engineering has to “make it work”? Can’t their work be connected to the engineering models so the integrity is maintained by developing the shapes around the necessary components and then having that shape used by the engineer directly?

The last three years have seen the development of technology and collaborative capabilities my small brain did not think would be possible for several years in the future. If you are an engineering student or a working engineer take the time to discover what is going on and to explore the philosophy of Digital Prototyping. This new Golden Age will continue to amaze and delight and the only thing that I am certain of is that my dreams of what could be possible will fall well short of the reality that is just around the corner.

YouTube follow up

 Well things haven't progressed as quickly as I'd hoped but the process is underway. Check out the Inventor Back to Basics channel to see tips on the fundamentals of using Inventor that can be easily missed by anyone working on their own.

 On the channel page you'll see where I've subscribed to other channels with great content for more advanced and esoteric content. If you've found a channel that you enjoy please pass it on to me so that I can get the additional learning as well.