Steve Fong Top DAUG at AU2010

To be at Autodesk University as a CAD user is to be in awe. The bright lights of Las Vegas, the big stage, the crowds...everybody seems to know where to go, knows which classes are good, knows more about AutoCAD, Revit, Inventor than you do. You may have been the big fish back home, but at AU, you are among sharks.

Steve Fong, winner of Top DAUG at AU2010, with first prize of HP netbook computer

This is Steve Fong's 2nd AU. He's holding his own against the sharks. He has taken a battery of certification exams, and passed. That by itself would put Steve a cut above the home crowd. But he's not done. He enters the Top DAUG contest, which will, after a brutal multiple choice test and a cold-sweat soaked 15-minute live test, crown one AutoCAD user as the best.

Steve is a CAD/BIM manager for Overland Partners Architects in San Antonio, Texas. He has been an AutoCAD user since 1985 with AutoCAD R2.09 and kept his skills sharp. But as he sits down at a workstation for the live test, he is not exactly brimming with confidence. He has managed to answer 25 out of 45 questions correctly on the multiple choice test. He has not expected to be among the finalists*. Thank God there was a curve, he thinks. He braces himself. Looking around, he sees only 4 other contestants... that's all that have made it this far from over 400 who took the multiple choice test. Maybe he has a chance...let the games begin!

So for 15 minutes, Steve blots out the crowds, the doubts. He focuses on the screen, which has him find answers to 10 AutoCAD questions. This time he's allowed to flip to AutoCAD to answer them. When its over, the contestants stand around as the scores are tallied.

Finally, AUGI president Mark Kiker calls Steve's name as the winner, and in that instant, an unbelieving Steve rises to the top of the Autodesk University crowd. To be recognized as a top user at the biggest CAD user meeting in the world... can it get any better than this?

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*What Steve didn't know was the test has been designed to be impossible, to stratify even the top power users. "We don't want anyone to score a 100%," says Donald Schwartz, president of CADLearning, creators of the test.

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More from the Top DAUG contest:

From left, Top DAUG Steve Fong, AUGI president Mark Kiker, Donald Schwartz of CADLearning.com, makers of the test, and Frank Deming of HP, who donated the netbook computer prize.

Dave Harrington, AUGI Sr VP and previous winner of Top DAUG at AU. 

Bill Adams, AUGI secretary and winner of "Longest Badge" unofficial contest at Autodesk University.

 

Comments

[Linda Fong]

Congratulation, Steve, on winning the Top DAUG competition on Las Vegas. We always knew you were number one in the world.

Mom and Dad

[R.K. McSwain]

I'm sure the test is a lot more difficult than the year I won, and the next year when I placed first but was denied the honor.

Congrats Steve!