December 08/08 meeting highlight:
6 SOAP members attended this meeting
David Estabrooks hosted this meeting.
Wolfe brought forward to change the name of SOAP to
Southern Ontario Autodesk Practitioners.
(accepted by all attending members)
This will indicate that we are not only focused on AutoCAD.
Inventor 2010 Beta version is out and if you wish to participate click here: http://myfeedback.autodesk.com/
We are all wanting to know what new feature will be in Inventor 2010 release.
We talked about new feature within Inventor, their application and usefulness.
Discussion was about rapid prototyping and the creation of STL file.
We had a discussion about Piezoelectricity and its applications. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezoelectric
Per request David demonstrated the ability to switch to difference sheet sizes with IDW file of Inventor.
No Draw Prize was performed.
November 10/08 meeting highlight:
11 SOAP members attended this meeting
Bill Taylor and Ryan Small of SolidCAD, Burlington hosted this meeting.
Bill talked about Autodesk subscription program and highlighted this with a power point demonstration.
Ryan demonstrated how to use AutoCAD DWG data within Inventor to create solid model in Inventor
thereafter utilizing Inventor data saved as DWG format to update AutoCAD DWG data.
This procedure is intended for AutoCAD DWG user to keep AutoCAD DWG up to date with complicated design data.
Draw Prizes donated by SolidCAD:
1-GB Flash Drive won by David Bender
SolidCAD T-shirt won by Lester Martin.
October 14/08 meeting highlight:
Federal Election, no meeting.
Draw Prize:
No draw prize was available.
September 8/08 meeting highlight:
6 SOAP members attended this meeting.
David Estabrooks hosted this meting.
The discussion and demonstration was the placing of tolerances on the model and the importance of model tolerances,
as opposed to just adding tolerances to the drawings.
Also discussed and demonstrated was adding metal finishing to drawing via text-note.
Roy Barrett brought to my attention a membership booster write up from AUGI, please read and your comments are welcome.
Many Local Chapter user groups work diligently to get new people to attend meetings and see the value of the Autodesk product user communities.
They also understand the importance of getting the members involved so they keep returning and feel a sense of belonging.
From this need - to attract and engage new attendees and keep them returning to future meetings - innovation sometimes emerges.
A case in point involves David Hampton, with Synergis Engineering Design Solutions.
Hampton is active in several local user groups including the Williamsport (PA) Manufacturing User Group.
He recognizes the value of promoting the user group in an effort to boost attendance. "Attendance is a big factor," says Hampton.
"You have to be aware and keep the word out there to show the value of the user group."
The
point system
Rather than just cross his fingers and hope that users will see the value of
belonging to a group,
Hampton took action by devising a point system which rewards members for participating in various ways.
Below is a closer look at the point system.
The "activity" is followed in parentheses by the number of points awarded for that activity.
Attending the meeting (1 point)
Bringing a new user (2 points for each new user)
Giving a user presentation (3 points)
Scheduling an outside vendor presentation (3 points)
Hosting a meeting or shop tour (5 points)
The three highest point totals after the next meeting of Hampton's group will receive awards and the honorary titles below.
1st Place = Champion
2nd Place = Power User
3rd Place = Dedicated Member
The points accumulate so that members can win prizes, but it is also creating a positive buzz inside the groups among its members.
Hampton said the point system, which was started in 2008, is working.
The groups are getting new people in the door and veteran members are speaking up and contributing with presentations, ideas, and more.
"The results are not finalized yet, but it's easiest to measure by attendance so far.
For the first and second round of quarterly user group [meetings], our attendance is up on average of 25 percent."
We would retain membership meeting attendance recording for increased chance to win Autodesk software.
To join AUGI free of charge:
www.augi.com/join/application.asp
Draw Prize:
No draw prize was available.
June 9/08 meeting highlight:
10 SOAP members attended this meeting.
David Estabrooks hosted this meting.
David outlined and discussed about Inventor 2009 New features.
All these new features can be viewed here:
http://danmiles.blogs.com/dan_miles/files/autodesk_inventor_2009_whats_new.pdf
For demonstration:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=9444974
Draw Prize:
One Autodesk NFR Software Code won by Andrew Schofield.
Wolfe reminded members the chance of winning will be greatly increased if SOAP meeting are regularly attended.
For detail see: http://www.soapweb.ca/Membership.htm
May 12/08 meeting highlight:
8 SOAP members attended this meeting.
David Estabrooks hosted this meting.
David demonstrated Inventor 2009 outlining various new features.
A member brought in a STEP file for translating within Inventor,
2009 Inventor version did not perform a successful translation, 2008 Inventor version translated the file 80% successful.
Draw Prize:
One Autodesk NFR Software Code won by David Bender.
April 14/08 meeting highlight:
9 SOAP members attended this meeting.
David Estabrooks hosted this meting.
Meeting was opened with a discussion about Operations systems.
It was pointed out, uninstalling a program does not necessary delete all other files and codes from the registry file.
Unless you know what you are doing, it is not recommended to delete codes from the registry file.
2009 Autodesk Inventor is released, MDT program is no longer part of Inventor release. Inventor Pro is still available as 2 version, Mechanical and Wiring.
2009 Inventor appears not to be too stringent about graphic Card requirement, it was noted that ATI graphic card is an acceptable graphic card.
2009 Inventor had a modified Vault.
David demonstrated Design Review, which is a free software from Autodesk.
Design Review purpose is to communicate with others who do not have access to Autodesk Inventor. Files need to be in DWF format.
One member illustrated an Inventor problem he encountered at work. Designing of an Fan Impeller with various reinforcement gussets.
With members input we were able to demonstrate various ways to overcome the problem.
It was agreed discussing and solving members input/problems will make these meetings more interesting and challenging.
Members should present these problem/challenges ahead of time.
Toward the end of the meeting we had a discussion about Patent infringement/litigation.
Draw Prize:
One 1 GB USB Flash Drive won by Lester Martin.
March 10/08 meeting highlight:
9 SOAP members and 1 Guest attended this meeting.
David Estabrooks hosted this meting.
Attempt was made to manually achieve motion (expand and collapse) of a Coil Spring, was not possible.
Motion within a Coil Spring was possible with driven dimension.
We had an open meeting, various topic were presented for discussion.
We talked about VBA and David spoke about it from his pass work experience.
Along this topic of VBA we talked about Lisp routine which is primarily used within AutoCAD.
We had a discussion of keystrokes shortcuts for Inventor, but it was the understanding that shortcuts are not used sufficiently.
David asked again, what should be presented/talked/demonstrated at future meetings, the following suggestion were made:
Inventor Weldments, Inventor Surface Modeling, Inventor Representations.
New Autodesk NFR software is available as electronic download with a recognized code.
Draw Prize:
One Autodesk NFR Software Code won by Fred Beemer.
February 11/08 meeting highlight:
5 SOAP members attended this meeting.
David demonstrated coil spring design and its compression and expanding movements.
We had a discussion of parametric sketching performed on IDW format.
It appears more function as we did know in AutoCAD become available in Inventor.
We had a discussion about Revision indicator for IDW.
Wolfe spoke about the positive changes by Autodesk for future NFR CAD software's to be implemented by end of February 2008.
Draw Prize:
Internet/USB etc. cabling won by David Bender.
January 14/08 meeting highlight:
No formal meeting was performed as no one was available to host this meeting.
We did talk about one member Inventor problem, one member was talking about Inventor use for his hobbies,
Model Aircraft, Model Boat and Model Cars all of these are remote controlled.
Draw Prize:
No draw prize was available.