Many of you might not know it, but mechanical CAD can trace its roots to the 1950s. In 1957 Dr. Patrick Hanratty, sometimes referred to as the “Father of CAD”, developed the first numerical control manufacturing system. He later went on to license technology to United Computing and Intergraph (both now part of Siemens PLM), Computervision (now part of PTC) and many others.
What’s a letter balance used for, and furthermore, what does one look like? Today fewer and fewer people would be able to tell you, which is why GrabCADr Dragan Beijan chose to create an old school letter balance for the “Build Models for Reuse with Good Design Intent” challenge, an entry which won him 1st place.
“I picked the design because today’s young generation does not know that device, it can be seen only in museums. I wanted to bring something unique to the community,” says Dragan. Read the rest of this entry »
I had the opportunity to talk to superyacht designer from UK, Orion Shuttleworth about his work and the award winning 42,5 M Trimaran Adastra.
What is your background?
I remember spending weekends with my father in his design office building models and trying to mimic his drawings when I was about 7 years old, so I guess this is when I first started to design yachts. I then designed boats for my A-levels and during my BA in Product Design which I studied at Nottingham Trent University. After graduating in 2004 with a First Class Honours I went on to work for my father’s company John Shuttleworth Yacht Designs Limited. After one year I moved to work for power boat designers Bernard Olesinski Limited where I became the lead designer on a number of projects for British motor yacht company Princess Yachts. In 2010 I set up my own consultancy Orion Shuttleworth Design Limited, to work on the design of Superyacht Adastra and a number of other projects. Both John and I now work together under a collaborative company called Shuttleworth Design Limited. Read the rest of this entry »
Design a creative toy that is ready to 3D print for the chance to win an Ultimaker 3D printer, one of the best selling and most well-known printers out there! Participants will have to impress an all-star jury of experts including Ultimaker, PCmag, TCT Magazine, 3D printing Industry blog, Ground3D, Protospace and GrabCAD, so show them something fun with great construction. We know that GrabCADrs are the best resource for something inventive!
What would you make for the kids you know? What classic toys do you still love? We recommend a lot of play time to get inspired for this one. The top 5 winners take home an Ultimaker 3D printer! We have already seen a lot of interest, so tap your imagination and join the fun.
What if the secret to success is actually failure? Failing is all about testing what you believe in the real world and then learning from the results. I’ve been able to learn so much about the failures experienced day to day by our community of engineers with our customer development process for GrabCAD Workbench of “Learn. Build. Repeat.” I want to share some of our most commonly heard CAD collaboration fails so you can learn from their mistakes:
Guest post: Alex Kukoff is a 14 year old, half-deaf college student who is looking for a concept design for a pair of closed-captioned glasses in the Eyes to Hear With: Easy to Manufacture CC Glasses Challenge on GrabCAD.
GrabCAD recently had the opportunity to speak at the latest Design for Manufacturing Summit in Brooklyn. NY. The intimate setting of mostly small to medium companies in the design and manufacturing industries made for honest and interesting panels. It is clear to our team that the point of 3D content is to help designers and engineers get real work done and real products made. We were glad to be included in the discussion around 3D printing, scanning and modeling so we could share this message with others.
