SOLIDWORKS World 2018 ended a few weeks ago and to say that it was an awesome event would be the undersell of the century. The entire week was jam-packed with amazing guest speakers, inspiring breakout sessions and a much needed break from the sub-zero temperatures of the Midwest (thank you, Los Angeles).
"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."
For many, hearing that quote for the first time sparked a curiosity about space and the hidden complexities of mankind's "final frontier." However, that dream will remain just a dream for most of us because apparently, it's really hard to become an astronaut.
My name is Travis Quick and I am an Application Engineer with Alignex, based out of Edina, MN. This was my first year at SOLIDWORKS World and I’m excited to tell you about all the great things that went on! From the cool technology that was represented at the Partner Pavilion, to the great new things customers are doing, to getting to meet all the amazing people at SOLIDWORKS that help make this community such a wonderful group to be a part of.
It's Day 3 at SOLIDWORKS World 2017! In today's general session, we got an exciting preview of new features coming to SOLIDWORKS 2018.
Here are 6 features that got spontaneous audience applause!
Are your modeling abilities a cut above the rest? Every year at SOLIDWORKS World design engineers from around the country test their skills and compete during a live Model Mania Contest. In 2015, Alignex customer Nick Vande Waerdt from Kooima won 1st place at SOLIDWORKS World.
This year at our Minneapolis 
, we thought we’d have a little competition of our own!
I'm looking forward to my keynote at next Tuesday's 
at Target Field in Minneapolis, and think you should be there. Here's why!
Engineers and designers from Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin joined us on September 23rd for a car-themed simulation event + classic car show at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.
For those of you who weren’t there, here are the highlights!
The power of a user group is evident once you attend. With a room full of engineers and designers who all use the same program, there’s a great chance of discovering a new technique, feature or process that elevate a design. A few of us from Alignex attended the Sioux Falls meeting to join the discussion which ranged from new features of SOLIDWORKS 2015 to facts about the larger SOLIDWORKS community.
User groups are a great place to learn more about SOLIDWORKS and engineering in general. There are also lots of video resources as well as offerings in schools and colleges. Here are a few interesting stats about the community of SOLIDWORKS learners:
Few things seem to mesh better than a conference for engineers and designers hosted at an air and space museum. Enter SAS, the Strategic Air and Space museum near Omaha, NE. Recently we hosted an event there that brought together people from a multitude of industries to unveil the new features of Dassault’s latest SOLIDWORKS release. Covering everything from weldment and sheet metal updates to some brand new pattern features, we sought to gauge some of the response from all of the well experienced users. So here it is: