Michael Lord

The Partner Pavilion at SolidWorks World is always a mixture of Showcase Products, sponsor products, hardware, software, food and beverages!  As always I never seem to have enough time available to fully take in all that is on offer. The talk of the Partner Pavilion was the release of two new and very different 3D Printers.  The releases like the companies, their technologies and their printers couldn’t have been more different.  One a large multinational company with a large imposing machine.  The other a start up with at what looks at first glance to be just another “Maker” 3D printer.

Stratasys released it’s newest Objet 500 Connex3, the first colour multi-material 3D printer. The release was as you would expect from the likes of Stratasys, a press conference with food and beverages, speeches, press material, a wonderful display of printed examples and support from a couple of key customers.

It most certainly is an impressive printer which produces even more impressive components.   A point of interest was that Stratasys expressed it’s desire to move it’s printers from being used predominately for “form & fit” prototyping into being used to produce “production” products.  They talked of it being the next Industrial revolution!

However they may have been beaten to that by a small start up with a very different printer.Mark Forged made an appearance on the main stage Day 2 of the General Session with it “Worlds First Carbon Fibre 3D Printer”It’s trick is the ability to lay out a single strand of Carbon Fibre (or Glass Fibre) in combination with Nylon to produce extremely stiff and strong components.   The ability to produce a structural component certainly lends itself to the production of low volume or one off specialised components.

The SolidWorks stand also was making use of a 3D Printer. Sitting unassumingly was a Microsoft Surface connected to a Makerbot Replicator 2The Surface was running SolidWorks 2015 and utilised the Print3D feature.   This removed the  need to convert the file to an STL and then take into a separate program!   Adjustment to densities, rafts, positioning was handled via the Task Pane.    A little bonus with the below image is the “3DViews” Tab.  Neither the Print3D or the 3DViews tab rated a mention in the Day 3 General Session teaser of new features for SolidWorks 2015To finish off with 3D Printers Mcor Technologies had their wonderful Iris running and on display  The Bo-Dyn Bobsled Night Train made is way from the main stage back into the Partner Pavilion 

As did Prosthesis from eatART Foundation

One of the most interesting and beautifully manufactured products was the Palhegyi Design reproduction of the 1970’s Yamaha TZ750 racing motorcycle!

Another interesting motorcycle was the Lawson AWD.   Different but not a totally new concept! I test rode an AWD bike way back in the early 1980’s!

More Motorcycle products, this time for the modern world from Cyclone Custom Corporation

So we move on to four wheels with the Luxury Pre Runner from Stewart’s Raceworks

Some Healthcare Products with the EPIQ Ultrasound System by Phillips

and Hologic – Selenia Dimensions 3D Mammography System Robots, we had Autonomous Robotics.   Kraken a Autonomous Underwater Vehicle from San Diego City RoboticsRobot – Code Orange -3476Daisy Thunder – The Holy Cows – Team 1538

Consumer Products.      Switch from Quirky Inc

AR Drone 2.0 from Parrot

SodaStream Genesis by SodaStreamNovagrade Universal Digiscoping Adapter by designPORTComposite Propeller Blade – GA – RZ from Whirl Wind Propellers Corp There was also a fair amount of discussion revolving around Lagoa – Multi-Optics Cloud Rendering Engine.   I had registered and signed up to Lagoa before the start of SolidWorks World 2014.  I’ve had an very brief use so far,  so I’ll be interested to see what and how it achieves it’s rendering, once I find a few spare hours!  Let’s finish with some Hardware.  Boxx Technologies had a range of their products out to try.As did HP with their HP Workstations

Along with Dell and their range of Dell Workstations

This was a brief and anything but comprehensive look at the Partner Pavilion!