SOLIDWORKS: KC STEM & SOLIDWORKS Alliance

SOLIDWORKS & KC STEM

With all of the news recently on STEM (Science, Technical, Engineering & Math) projects and educational programs, I had the pleasure of presenting the SOLIDWORKS Product Portfolio to Kansas City, Missouri metropolitan school departments last week. This is an annual forum for regional educators and administrators to see new things in industry and to share student projects in this field.

The local chapter is called KC STEM Alliance and has been going strong for many years. I found out about this organization through a co-worker and we had an initial meeting to discuss projects and our involvement. Our first collaboration was to give an overview of the SOLIDWORKS products that educators could gain access to and share that with their students.

For this project I decided to focus on all aspects of SOLIDWORKS. I explained the benefits of SOLIDWORKS, Simulation, Plastics, Electrical and PDM access. I know from working with other educational teams from BAJA races to Formula 1 cars design, that each needs to have a project completed with CAD as well as a nice Marketing Package to showcase their designs. I also introduced the group to products like SOLIDWORKS Visualize and Composer to help them create this wonderful digital content.

We completed our presentation highlighting the many certifications that students and commercial users can earn. Starting with the CSWA-Academic to the top level CSWE. Educating the faculty on how they can get students interested in learning more about SOLIDWORKS and earn these certifications to help further their career once they get into the professional fields of their study.

I also shared the stage with a local company and customer of ours who uses SOLIDWORKS in ways that are definitely outside the realm of typical mechanical design projects. This company is known as Dimensional Innovations or DI for short. Their engineering manager showcased one of their latest projects from initial concept to detailed shop drawings complete with engineering analysis to confirm stability and strength.

I had a great time seeing the look of understanding on the audience faces and look forward to more involvement in the future with this great organization. Never stop learning!

Brian Reel
Field Technical Services Manager
Computer Aided Technology