SolidWorks Training Diary -- All's Well That Ends Well

True to my promise I made at the end of my SolidWorks Essentials class, I "stayed with it," devoting at least half an hour a day to using the software. Okay, may be not every day, but most days.. The perseverance paid off.

I tested myself by creating 2 parts that I was quite familiar with from my teaching days and surprised myself by finishing them. I was hardly moving at demo jock speed. In fact, I think I made a few small errors and probably would have made the demo jocks laugh at my bungling ways. But most importantly, I finished. Gone was the head banging, fits and frustrations that marked my first few attempts. Several times, I came up against what would have been a barrier but some memory of a procedure, command or trick learned in class would kick in and I was able to get through it. Lo and behold, the people who had told me to take a class actually knew what they were talking about.

I must say I actually enjoyed making the parts shown. Compared to my old ways (over ten years ago with Mechanical Desktop) this newfangled software was a delight. For example, the ease at which I could move around the model to view it from different angles was SO easy with SolidWorks. In fact, I think I may even have exposed a small error in a model that had gone undetected in 4 years of teaching 3D modeling. Also enjoyable was using the feature tree to make changes. I loved SolidWorks' extrude command with its offset feature, which allows me to start an extrusion away from a chosen plane -- one of many little timesavers that I found in SolidWorks 2007.

Overall, my experience with SolidWorks has left me feeling that the software is, indeed, a joy to use as long as the user allows for an adequate training period. Do not think that using such a sophisticated product right out of the box will be straight forward or easy. I suppose a user could be self taught but this would greatly extend the training period. The consensus -- and my own personal experience -- calls for a short class by a certified instructor. In other words, you can launch from a long runway or use a catapult launch. You may protest when your SolidWorks VAR will only sell software bundled with 1 year of support and a training class. If you are a skeptic like me, you'll think of this as a way to jack up the profits -- like the warranties that the electronics stores always want to sell you. But in this case, the skeptics will be wrong -- the training is essential.

Comments

[Jeff Mirisola]

Roopinder,
I'm happy to hear that everything worked out for you with SolidWorks. It can be quirky, but it certainly gets the job done.
Keep practicing!

[Jon Hirschtick]

Roopinder you have it right -- training is critical to 3D CAD success. Sure anyone can learn to make a box with a couple of fillets without training, but to really be productive and successful with using 3D CAD you need training.

Even if the software were to become completely obvious, training would still be important. Designers need to know how to maximally leverage 3D CAD to design better products.