TriMech Blog

Having already designed the wood stringers with SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD in part 1 and refined the shape of the kayak for buoyancy, stability and draw with Flow Simulation in part 2,  the third step in designing a 3D printed kayak is designing the interior structure. In this blog, I'll show how to create the geometry to hold the stringers in place.

With summer upon us, it's time for my favorite pastime (other than using SOLIDWORKS): Kayaking! And this year I have a brand new boat to play with.

See the entire design process of the TriMech kayak, from idea to production and launch, in our five-part video blog series. In this first video, I go over how to use SOLIDWORKS to create the initial concept of the kayak by using a historic design for inspiration. Watch the video below.

Being a swim mom, I spend a lot of time in places that are hot, humid and smell of chlorine. My daughter swims competitively year-round, so there is rarely a weekend where I am not sitting poolside, sweating while cheering her on. One thing that has always caught my attention, is the number of girls swimming with long hair. Olympic men shave their bodies to reduce drag, so what can a thin swim cap do to prevent drag for a girl with long hair? There also doesn't seem to be any reasoning behind where the lump of hair ends up on their head. This made the engineering side of my brain wake up and question if the location of the lump under the cap mattered at all.  

If you haven't slowed down to appreciate the more subtle aspects of the SOLIDWORKS user interface, we recommend you take a moment to do just that. It’s easy to get so caught up in your design task, that you miss the many cues SOLIDWORKS provides to help with important commands that we all repeat, day-in and day-out. Keep reading for some helpful hints to be more aware of the cues SOLIDWORKS offers. 

I recently paid a visit to my old stomping grounds, Smithfield High School in Rhode Island. It was my intention to catch up with my original CAD teacher, as I wanted to learn how his students are using SOLIDWORKS. What I expected to be a two hour visit, ended up being an entire day. I met with three STEM classes and even taught one! It was great to work with these up-and-coming SOLIDWORKS designers and learn about how they are using 3D CAD for their class projects. Below are some of my experiences with these different classes.

The first day of CAASE18 at the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland, Ohio was off to a strong start with more than 550 leading simulation engineers and vendors in attendance. This largest conference in North America for computer-aided engineering leaders and analysts. NAFEMS and Digital Engineering has delivered. 

As we head into the peak of summer, the International Association for the Engineering Modelling, Analysis and Simulation Community (NAFEMS) and Digital Engineering are gearing up to co-host the largest gathering of computer-aided engineering professionals. TriMech will be in attendance, as keynote speakers from Ford Motor Company to technical officials from Federal Aviation Administration discuss emerging challenges in manufacturing and material processes as applicable to digital engineering.

In many industries, quick manufacturing turnaround is an important element of the design process. When sending an assembly with multiple 2D flat components to a cutting machine, organizing and outputting these profiles can be tedious. If your workflow involves exporting these profiles as part of one drawing, the traditional technique is to create a view of each component, which can later be exported to a 2D format. For a faster alternative, keep reading! 

We all have our favorites in the diverse arsenal of SOLIDWORKS sketching tools. However, for most, those favorites all shine on the CommandManager, taking the spotlight, right at the top of our screen. This spot is well deserved by most of the icons that are found here, but when it comes to sketching tools in SOLIDWORKS, there is more than meets the eye. Many powerful tools made for the sketching environment are under-utilized. In this blog, we dive into some of these tools and how they work. 

TriMech is fortunate to work with clients from Maine to Florida and out to Arkansas, offering a range of engineering solutions. This week's client story showcases a client's use of SOLIDWORKS Drawing Training. 

TriMech is fortunate to work with clients from Maine to Florida and out to Arkansas, offering a range of engineering solutions. This week's client story showcases how SOLIDWORKS Essentials training sharpened our client's skill set. 

TriMech is fortunate to work with clients from Maine to Florida and out to Arkansas, offering a range of engineering solutions. This week's client story showcases a client's use of SOLIDWORKS Advanced Part Modeling Training.