If you want to start up a controversial topic in a mixed group, just mention Tesla. The California automaker is simultaneously lauded and hated by large crowds. I find as an automotive writer, people are often puzzled by my mixed opinion of the company. Read more
“What is not on paper has not been said.” Anonymous Let's talk about customer requirements. Sometimes I find myself in a social situation where I don’t know a bunch of folks. After introductions, one of the first questions is: “What do you do?” I try to gage the level of interest and most of the time my answer is pretty simple: “I work as an engineer.” Read more
Star Wars? Star Trek? Battlestar Galactica? If you're a science fiction fan, you'll probably find at least a few models you'll like in the GrabCAD Community Library of over 2.7 million free online CAD models. And, since we were feeling a real sci-fi vibe lately, we wanted to showcase some of our favorite models from that section of our library: Read more
Gasoline engines aren’t dead, at least not yet. Even though Volvo says it won’t pour any more resources into developing more gasoline tech, other automakers think the internal combustion engine will have legs for a couple more decades or so. Read more
Few would argue that more monitor/display space helps desktop user productivity – particularly for visually-intensive tasks like hardware product design and development, and code/collaborative tasks that typically call for having ten or twenty windows and browser tabs open and visible. Read more
From cutting costs and increasing efficiency to prompting innovation, 3D printing has had an undeniably significant impact on the manufacturing industry in recent years. Thanks to advances in material science, digital design and on-demand production capabilities, we are seeing industry-wide change. From the realms of aerospace and prosthetics, to cars, sports and food, manufacturers are tapping into 3D printing technology to improve and revolutionize their production processes. Read more
There’s no denying the growing strength of Chinese automakers. As domestic players in the largest car market in the world, where sales have been on a continual rise for an unbelievable amount of time, they simply aren’t going to fade into the background. Read more
It’s easy to get excited about a project that you are working on – in fact, it happens to me all the time. I start working on something and as I find out more about the technical issues, or the work’s relevance in the overall scheme of things, I get more and more excited about the work that I am doing. And when I get an opportunity to present out the status of the project or brief the experts on a particular issue being worked on, I want to make sure I present as full of a picture of the project as possible. That just makes sense: good data in = good results out. Read more
Metal 3D Printing is undoubtedly the next big thing in the fast-moving realm of 3D printing. Put simply, it’s a quick and effective process used to create three-dimensional metal parts from a digital file. Using 3D CAD technology, metal 3D printing techniques use binders, lasers and heated nozzles to create products that are robust and boast intricate internal features (channels, undercuts, inner tubes, internal voids). Components that wouldn’t have been imaginable a few years ago are now a reality due to the various industrial applications available for metal 3D printing today. Read more