Last night, Dana Parrish made his second trip to Huntsville this year to give the North Alabama SolidWorks User Group (NASWUG) a look at COSMOSWorks 2008.  (He was here back in March showing COSMOSFloWorks.)  This was a fairly top-level overview of the software, with mostly video demonstrations, but there were some hands-on demonstrations.

There were several interesting questions posed, and Dana was able to answer them all to everyone’s satisfaction.  I was very impressed with the new alternate mesher, and there were several new capabilities shown, such as improvements to bolt connectors and the ability to add forces at any location on a surface without having to create split lines.  You can read more about the new additions and enhancements in COSMOSWorks here.

As Ricky has already mentioned in his blog, this was the first time that the new SolidWorks 2008 interface was shown publicly in Huntsville.

I think everyone was excited to see what SolidWorks 2008 has in store.  I know I can wait until we roll it out here!

Free CSWA Exams for User Group Members!

There was also an announcement made last night that everyone in attendance will be able to take the Certified SolidWorks Associate (CSWA) exam for free!  SolidWorks has created a beta program for the CSWA exam, which is normally only proctored by authorized educational institutions, and is rolling it out to user group members.  The CSWA certification can be used as a stepping-stone to train for the Certified SolidWorks Professional (CSWP) exam.

Ricky Jordan posted about this game on his blog this morning, and I’m having a blast playing it! If only I could get the people I work with to leave me alone long enough to finish the game!

It was a little confusing at first, as it uses icons instead of the usual numbers, but as I’m learning to recognize the different icons, I’m steadily coming up to speed!

Last night, the North Alabama SolidWorks User Group (NASWUG) got a special treat!  Dana Parrish, the South Region SolidWorks Territory Technical Manager for COSMOS apps, gave an awesome overview of COSMOSFloWorks.

After everyone’s appetite was sated with Guthrie’s chicken fingers and fries, Dana gave a very informative PowerPoint presentation on COSMOSFloWorks describing what the package has to offer and its technical capabilities, how it is implemented into SolidWorks with a familiar interface, a sampling of market and industry users, and some examples in action. Then it was time for the live demo.

Dana used a model of a Venturi tube assembly with methane being injected into a stream of air.  He went through each step of setting up the study in detail and then showed the different ways that you could graphically demonstrate the results.  He also showed how easy an Excel file could be generated with the results, including plots.

He then gave a "bonus" plug for COSMOSWorks by showing how easy it was to integrate the results from the COSMOSFloWorks analysis into a COSMOSWorks study.

I don’t normally do much analysis in my work – we have certain people that perform that task – and I definitely don’t recall much CFD knowledge from my college years (I know just enough to be dangerous in both respects!), but after this demo, I feel confident that I could sit down with COSMOSFloWorks and come up with decent results if I had to.

Dana did a very good job of representing the COSMOS line of products – and it definitely didn’t feel like a "marketing spiel".  Although if I was the one writing the checks, I believe I would have bought a seat right then!  Sometimes I think I am the only one at my company that can see the benefit of having design and analysis tools that can easily talk to one another…but I digress.

After the demos, NASWUG president Ricky Jordan talked about some important upcoming events.  The SWUGN Technical Summit in Nashville, TN on May 22, 2007 was discussed and based on the feedback from the attendees, it looks as though our user group will be very well-represented!  NASWUG VP, Gary Hall, has thrown down the gauntlet as he said that he has gotten approval for all 13 SolidWorks users at his company to attend the Summit!

It was also announced that the next evening NASWUG meeting on June 11, 2007 would have some very special guests:  John McEleney, SolidWorks CEO, and Richard Doyle, SolidWorks User Group Community Coordinator, will both be present!

Finally, there was a review of SolidWorks World 2007, along with the awesome "Space Station" video created by SolidWorks Product Manager, Mark Biasotti (on his own time, nonetheless), and a sneak peek of SolidWorks 2008 was shown.

All-in-all, it was one of the best user group meetings I believe we’ve had!