It's the end! Of 2012. Not the World. Luckily for us the Mayans were wrong. Thank goodness - we can still keep Engineering, Designing and Adventuring into 2013. But before we do that, we want to show off the best models that were submitted this year on GrabCAD. I looked through our library, our previous MWL and what has been most heavily commented, most heavily 'liked' (i prefer 'loved'), most downloaded and most importantly, designs created by collaboration. Ladies and Gentlemen, in no particular order, the final MWL.
First off, big hats off to GrabCAD Engineer Extraordinaire, KFZ-Schule. His Mechanical Horse was the most downloaded model this year, with a total of 12446 downloads. It's a stellar combination of engineering prowess, CAD skills and general ingenuity - everything we love to see on GrabCAD.
2012 was the year of collaboration. As GrabCAD Teams was being improved, a few GrabCADrs stepped in and brought together other users to collaborate and create. After we ran a Engineer's Spotlight on EDISON PHOENIX, he brought in a number of luminaries in the Community to make the ultimate flying car - the GrabCAD. Calling themselves the GrabCAD Engineering Crew, there was a great deal of sharing, thinking, discussing and designing that went into this project, culminating in a huge variety of designs. Here is one by Stefan Varga. It's a private project - if you want to see more, contact Edison to ask for permission.
The second big project we saw going with GrabCAD Teams was Solidworks City, started by Tommy Mueller and augmented by 52 GrabCADrs. Within a month, we had filled the entire maps with our own buildings, featuring futuristic geometry, leaps in Architectural thinking and waterslides. Don't you love how a plan comes together?
In the world of pure Mechanical Engineering, there were a number of shining stars. This is a special gem that got a huge response after it was posted. Dano Vinson's 32 Valve V8 Engine came complete with STEP parts, video, renderings ... the full works. You could download it, machine every part and I bet it would work.
Then there are designs that are beyond manufacturing - that is, beyond machining in a traditional sense. This is an 11 Gear Mobiüs Strip made by Blake Courter (one of the Jury members from our SpaceClaim challenge). He posted this and got a furious response. Someone even successfully 3D printed it and shared a picture. We love it because it's the sort of design warps the way you look at the World after you've seen it, which is the most important thing about sharing - fresh perspectives.
This is the Snowrider Concept Bike by GrabCADr Josef Snabb. This is a design that is first in our hearts and our hard-drives, an ingenious remix of lots of different CAD models from GrabCAD brought together by that 'Ah-HA' moment which hits all of us once in a while. What really got me was the independent thinking of Josef and that fact that he cited and complimented everyone that he downloaded parts from. That is something that we at GrabCAD like to see everyday.
We will also be celebrating the newly minted, annual Golden Gear Awards where we will give out a trophy created by our Community to some of the best models of the year. This is our way of saying thank you to all of our Engineers and Designers for making us the best place to share, collaborate, and learn CAD!
