GrabCAD Community member Raul Juanatey recently won the Altran Foundation Award for Innovation in Spain for his Kick and Go Scooter. I interviewed Raul to find about more about his work, the award and what's next for his project.
What is your background, what are you working on at the moment?
My background is in Management Studies, but most of the time my mind is trying to understand how things work, and how to improve them.
As a designer, at the moment I am still developing the idea of “V-Compound” engines, which got an honorable mention in your Bolt your Hardware contest, and I am also developing new ideas related to Renewable Energy that I haven´t published yet.
But in the next months my priority is going to be the KickScooter, as now I have the technical assistance of a engineering company as Altran, in order to develop it into a real product.
Why did you start using GrabCAD? How did you work before?
I ran into GrabCAD on the web by chance- at that time I was looking for something in Google Images. Before that, all I had used were drawings made with Microsoft Word. But when I started the project of “Parallel Architecture” I felt that I needed much better quality in the renderings, so I started to learn CAD. Unfortunately I haven´t improved too much in the last two years.
What is most valuable to you on GrabCAD?
The access to other engineers' work is extremely valuable. For the KickScooter I first used a scooter by Jezeer Shabry which I modified myself. Then I used the Trotinette by Nicolas Trillard which was modified by a Spanish designer. And after I published it on GrabCAD, it was rendered by Carlos Perez. I made use of all of this at the Altran Foundation Awards contest.
When I'm thinking up new concepts, wandering around GrabCAD is a pleasure for me. Being able to download and open others' designs in CAD tools allow a much better understanding of a product than any image.
What CAD tools can you not live without?
I think that the new 3D viewer option in GrabCAD is a great advance.
What little known tools or tips would you give to your peers?
A Word can be Worth a Thousand Renderings. Pay extra attention to your descriptions on GrabCAD. In many cases there is great CAD work without almost any text attached. Just adding a brief history and a short explanation of the project helps others to understand and appreciate the work of the designer much better.
What's next for Raul and the KickScooter
We're happy to see Raul leveraging the Community and his peers to bring his designs to the next level. For more on why his design won the Altran Foundation's praise, visit their interview. The jury sees great potential for developing Raul's concept and believes it will prove to be a sustainable product that will contribute to the social welfare.
