Every year SOLIDWORKS hosts one of the largest engineering conferences in the world, SOLIDWORKS World. And since SOLIDWORKS World 2000, Model Mania has been an attraction for many engineers wanting to show off their prowess with SOLIDWORKS.
Model Mania, for those not familiar, is a design challenge where you are measured on both time and accuracy.
First, you are first given a 2D drawing of a part. Your goal is to create that part in SOLIDWORKS as quickly and as accurately as possible. Seems simple, right? Well the second “Phase” is when things get really interesting. For Phase 2, you are given a modified version of that drawing; you can consider it an engineering change if you like. Your goal now, similar to before, is to make the design change as quickly and as accurately as possible.
At SOLIDWORKS World, all of the entries are judged on accuracy first, and time second, because in the real world, it doesn’t matter how fast you get something done if it’s not right.
This year, in celebration of the last 15 years of Model Mania; as we lead up to SOLIDWORKS World 2015, we will highlight each of the previous years design challenges for you to tackle on your own.
Every Tuesday, we will post the drawings from each year’s competition, counting up to SOLIDWORKS WORLD 2015. We will provide drawings for both Stage 1 and Stage 2 together. Using the steps above, you can use the drawings to test yourself. Keep in mind, it’s up to you to be honest with yourselves and not peek at Stage 2 until you’ve completed Stage 1. Even as a SOLIDWORKS employee, each year, I take a stab at the design challenge personally using the Clock App on my iPhone to see how well I did.
Then, the following Friday, we will post downloadable models in Part Reviewer format so that you can review one of several ways you could have build the model. We will also provide a video showing the creation of the part in SOLIDWORKS for you to follow along if you’re curious to our approach.
To get engaged and see how you compare to others, I encourage you to post your times for both Stage 1 and Stage 2, including total time in the comments below and on Twitter using the hashtag #SWW15!
Also, if you’ve never been to SOLIDWORKS World, I highly recommend learning more about this great event by clicking on the banner below. There’s tons of great information about the event and justification material for your manager to help them understand why SOLIDWORKS World is an important investment of your time.
If you haven’t had a chance to look at the drawings for the Model Mania 2012 design challenge, you can find the previous blog post here.
As mentioned above, you can download the Part Reviewer parts for this year’s challenge below by clicking on the images of each phase below. Each file has documented the process of how the part was created. The Phase 2 model then specifically mentions those features which have changed in the Part Reviewer Notes. You can learn more about Part Reviewer here.
Finally, you can watch how I approached the Model Mania Design Challenge from SOLIDWORKS World 2012 in the video below. For this challenge, the initial part in Phase 1 is actually quite easy to create. The only real challenge was in Phase 2, making sure that when the cuts on the side of the part were extended, that the additional boss on the bottom extended properly. Also, for Phase 2 I use SOLIDWORKS SimulationXpress to determine the Factor of Safety and the Displacement of the part with a load applied to it. Alternatively, you could use SOLIDWORKS Simulation as well.
Original post created by Jeremy Regnerus, Senior User Advocacy and Community Manager at SOLIDWORKS