Thursday, July 22, 2010

Day 8 - More SolidWorks!

Back in the OETL, we continued familiarizing ourselves with SolidWorks through the tutorials. Next week, there will be a summer camp for high school students, whose task will be to reconstruct a metal part in SolidWorks for a project they are building. Matt sent me and Cole a copy of the drawing he made so we could test out the assignment for the camp. We were given very little direction and had to figure out for ourselves how to create the part. At first I thought, "How do I even begin?" Sometimes getting started is the most difficult part. Though it appeared complicated, once I created a foundation for the model by drawing 3 center lines and building from there, the task became far more manageable.

We planned out how best to teach a camp of students new to SolidWorks. First, they would benefit from a 30-minute tutorial help available when needed. This should be followed by a brief presentation by Matt on topics not covered by the tutorial, such as relations between figures and how to get started on the drawing. Cole and I created a sheet of problem-solution scenarios for troubleshooting SolidWorks. We would have saved a lot of time and frustration if we had known these solutions when we first started in SolidWorks, so we hope that they will be helpful to the campers next week. For example:

What do I do if…

Problem: When you try to extrude, a message pops up that says you must decrease the depth of the extrusion.

Solution:
Zoom in on corners and make sure that there are NO OPEN corners. Close up any open corners or ends.

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