student design competition

calendar of events

solid reference

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thelearningcurveSolidWorks in Education

Creativity, compassion, andSolidWorks help students solveCapstone design problems andserve humanity

DESIGN thatMATTERS

The West African women sit at long tables in a bare, darkroom lit only by kerosene lamps and the glow of a projec-tion system high on the wall. The women, some with babiessleeping in slings by their sides, are tired after a long dayin the fields. But they are a study in concentration as theyfocus on the projected image. In a village without electricity,the projection system is at the vanguard of an effort tofight poverty with the most potent weapons known tohumankind: literacy and learning.

Called Kinkajou for a South American mammal known for its big, reflective eyes, the projection system is one ofdozens of projects developed by the nonprofit organizationcalled Design that Matters (DtM). The nonprofit organizationcouples the creative energy of Capstone Project engineeringstudents with the power of Solidworks software to designsolutions that bring products and services of sustainingbenefit and impact to underserved communities through-out the developing world.

Fall 2003

continued on page 2

Women from the village, along with their babies,participate in an evening literacy class

DtThe Learning Curve 2

Launched in the fall of 2000 by a team of graduate students at M.I.T.’s Media Lab, DtM projects inspire students to act as change agents in parts of the worldwhere change is sorely needed, including West Africa,the Far East and the Indian sub-continent region. Butthe projects are not just about engineering. They mustbe viable from a business point of view, and must skill-fully harmonize with the indigenous culture, traditionsand morals of the people they are intended to help.

“When I was a Peace Corps volunteer, I helped with avariety of projects,” recalls Timothy Prestero, co-founderof the nonprofit and an M.I.T. graduate in mechanicalengineering. “But I often felt like we were increasingdependency instead of self-sufficiency, which is reallywhat it takes to make a substantial and lasting differ-ence. That’s a core element of our philosophy at Designthat Matters—creating sustainable solutions.”

Practical Projects with MeaningEngineering students at M.I.T. and at several other col-laborating universities all struggle to meet the require-ments of so-called Capstone design projects, whichseek to combine advanced-level student design projectswith practical considerations, such as cost and manu-facturing viability. Prestero and DtM co-founder NeilCantor decided to tie the Capstone requirements toprojects that would expand the scope and wouldaddress pressing social and economic needs of com-munities in underserved parts of the world, includingprojects to forward literacy, health, and democracy.Thus DtM was born.

Working with various M.I.T. professors who serve asproject mentors, Cantor and Prestero solicit problemsto solve, based on needs identified and validated by thecommunities themselves or by national and internationalaid groups, many of which Prestero knew from his PeaceCorps days, such as Doctors Without Borders and theRed Cross. Their challenge is not finding projects for stu-dents to tackle, but sorting through the variety of needsand then matching these needs to the students’ ability tosolve the problem and make a meaningful contributionon a global scale. Another issue, albeit a good one, isscaling DtM projects to meet the demand of the numberof students who want to be involved, Cantor says.

The co-founders sort the projects based on several fac-tors. They consider the number of people who couldpotentially be helped. They also look at the scope of theproject to ensure it can be broken into portions stu-dents can complete during the school year. And finally,they weigh the ability of the project to be sustained atthe local level once initial designs have been built, test-

“That’s a core element of ourphilosophy at Design that Matters—

creating sustainable solutions.” —Tim Prestero, Co-founder, Design that Matters

tM3 The Learning Curve

ed, and deployed. Funding came initially from M.I.T., buthas grown to include philanthropic and other in-kinddonations, as well as sponsorship from the SolidworksEducation Program and Solidworks Corporation. Thegoal is to become self-sustaining in part through prod-uct sales and patent licensing. At any one time, theremay be more than two dozen DtM projects in develop-ment, with the intent that some will emerge as viablecommercial endeavors.

Shedding Light on IlliteracyThe Kinkajou microfilm projector demonstrates how mul-tiple student teams work with DtM to develop empower-ing, sustainable solutions that address pressing needs,while also addressing budget constraints and the realitiesof local environment. The Kinkajou project began in thespring of 2002 with a DtM team investigating low-costalternatives to providing books in parts of the develop-ing world where access and ownership of books is pro-hibitively expensive. In the fall of 2002, a second M.I.T.student team picked up the project as part of their studiesin Professor Woodie Flowers’ Capstone design course inproduct engineering. A popular and well-known profes-sor, Flowers also works with the FIRST RoboticsCompetition, where SolidWorks technology has been usedby award-winning high school robotics teams.

Partnering with a Boston-based nonprofit called WorldEducation, the team narrowed its focus to the plight ofmost West African women, who are struggling to breakthe cycle of illiteracy and poverty. Women in countrieslike Mali have a fierce desire to learn, but are limited bya lack of books and often by a lack of electricity. Asmost village women work the fields by day, their learn-ing time must take place in the hours after dark. Withno books to read, and no light to read them by, the waron illiteracy in such places is a slow process.

The DtM team, with mentoring from Professor Flowersand support from various M.I.T. programs and offices,worked to design and build a projection system forwhich textbook information could be economicallyloaded onto microfilm cassettes. This solved the bookproblem, but what about the lack of electricity?

“While most villages do lack electrical power, the M.I.T.student team learned that in Mali there is a crude infra-structure for charging 12-volt car batteries, which areused for various things throughout the country, includ-ing cars,” notes Prestero. “So the students designed theKinkajou system to run off a 12-volt power supply. Theprojector runs very economically so it wouldn’t drainthe battery and still projects a crisp and bright imagefor teaching the women how to read.”

Using SolidWorks, the team quickly designed several 3Dprototypes. The projector utilizes an innovative, high-intensity white light LED that is a durable solution forprojecting images. Students designed both alpha andbeta versions of the Kinkajou system with SolidWorks.

“SolidWorks lets the students approach the designproblem and explore creative solutions immediately,”says Cantor. “It’s so easy and intuitive that studentsdon’t have to fight to learn the application. Instead, theycan direct their energies toward actual design. Thesoftware has the ability to catch errors and mistakesbefore you know they’re there.”

SolidWorks: Design Made EasyThe students who helped design the Kinkajou projectionsystem also reflect another one of Cantor’s goals forDtM. One of 16 students, Kateri Garcia is now workingas a manufacturing engineer for Medtronic inMinneapolis. Kateri likes the way SolidWorks easilyallows team members to make and share designchanges in a structured way. “Even the vocabularySolidWorks uses is more intuitive than other designprograms I’ve used,” Garcia says. “It’s a smart programwith easy to incorporate drag-and-drop features thatmake editing and updating models simple.” Over thecourse of two semesters, the student team was able todevelop, refine, and finalize the prototypes in SolidWorks.

Garcia also was one of four MIT students who traveled toMali to test the Kinkajou system in the field. The womenof the village take part in a nine-month educational pro-gram that covers literacy, introductory math, maternityand infant health, and domestic skills. Most of thewomen have not had any previous or formal schooling.

designthatmatters TM

Outreach * Education * Innovationfor Sustainable Development

The Learning Curve 4

Light from the Kinkajou projector is the only illumination in the classroom

Drawing a frugal 5 watts of power, the Kinkajouprojector can run for several weeks from a

single charge of the 12-volt car battery.

Easing the Pain of CholeraAnother exciting example of DtM students’ use ofSolidWorks technology involves the fight against the age-old but persistent plague of cholera, still rampant inmany underserved communities. Cholera can spreadthrough a community very quickly, often resulting indeath by dehydration. First-line defense treatmentinvolves intravenous (IV) rehydrating, often undertaken bylocal caregivers to large numbers of sufferers. The IVdrips must be set up quickly, and then calibrated tooperate properly to dispense the right amount of salinesolution according to the weight and condition of thepatient. In a cholera epidemic, thousands of cases candevelop in a matter of days, overwhelming the capacity ofrelief agencies like Doctors Without Borders and the RedCross. Sometimes it becomes necessary for local peopleto treat each other, but these local caregivers have nomedical training, and don’t know how to read. The IVflow-control devices are not intuitive enough for illiterateor semiliterate caregivers who need to use them.

The DtM student team charged up the SolidWorks soft-ware in the M.I.T. College of Engineering. They immedi-ately took advantage of the software’s ability to translatecomplex mathematical functions governing IV flow ratesand calibration into useful 3D models. The prototypesdeveloped directly from the SolidWorks designs haveimproved IV drip-flow monitoring at low cost by employ-ing several creative advances, including the use of simplecolor coding to help caregivers. The DtM team now hasthree patents pending for its devices as well as licensingagreements with manufacturers to produce the devices.

Students from other engineering schools around thecountry and the world will join the 300-plus MIT stu-dents who are already part of various DtM projects. Thisfall the nonprofit is working with a class at CambridgeUniversity in London and is doing pilot tests at otherU.S. universities such as Rochester Institute. Over thenext five years, Prestero and Cantor hope to involve asmany as 100 or more universities in projects that willimprove the lives of some of the world’s most hard-pressed people. And SolidWorks will serve as the unify-ing design tool for collaboration on these projects.

“The students’ experience will help them see the worlddifferently, and this can have a lasting impact on theirprofessional lives,” says Cantor. “This program appealsdirectly to their desire to help and do something posi-tive in the world.”

Drawing a frugal 5 watts of power, the Kinkajou projec-tor can run for several weeks’ worth of classroom learn-ing from a single charge of the 12-volt car battery. Theprojector also needed to be dustproof, because the vil-lage is adjacent to the Sahara Desert. Knowing that asmany as 70 women can crowd into a single classroom,the the students in Professor Flower’s class designedprototypes that would project high on the walls of theclassroom so everyone could view the course materials.Each microfilm cassette stores up to 10,000 images oftext-more than the entire course curriculum-all at a tinyfraction of the cost of providing books.

At present, DtM is planning to scale the Kinkajou pro-jection project to broader deployments throughout WestAfrica, and is seeking partners to help with local manu-facture of the ingenious device.

5 The Learning Curve

SolidWorks received a number of excellent entries forthe Spring 2003 Student Design Contest. These includedsubmissions from middle schools, secondary schools,and college/universities. The following were judged to bethe best from the entries:

First prizeRobert Wolcott SchoolOregon State University, Oregon, USA NINE-CYLINDER RADIAL AIRPLANE ENGINE DESIGN,complete with animation created using SolidWorksAnimator, which demonstrates the complex mechanicaloperation of the engine.

Second prizeIan DixonSan Jose State University, San Jose, California, USA MINI-BAJA RACE CAR with detailed mechanical design.

Third prizeAlexandre BoucherEcole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Metz, Metz, FranceF1 RACING CAR with sophisticated body design.

ACTEAssociation for Career andTechnical Education 2003Convention and Career ExxpoDecember 11-13, 2003Orlando, Florida http://www.acteonline.org

ASEEAmerican Society forEngineering Education 111th Annual Conference andExposition June 20-23, 2004 Salt Lake City, Utah http://www.asee.org

EDGDEngineering Design GraphicsDivision58th Annual Mid-Year MeetingNovember 15-19, 2003 Scottsdale, Arizona http://www.east.asu.edu/edgd

FIRST Robotics Competition - Kickoff Event

January 10, 2004 - Regionals

see website listings - Championship

April 15 - 17, 2004 Georgia Dome, Atlanta http://www.usfirst.org

ITEAInternational TechnologyEducation Association 66nd Annual Conference March 18-20, 2004 Albuquerque, New Mexico http://www.itea.org

MITES Michigan IndustrialTechnology Education Society 76th Annual Conference andExposition May 2004 Battle Creek, Michigan http://www.sae.org/students/collchap.htm

SAE Collegiate Society of AutomotiveEngineers Collegiate May 19-23, 2004 Pontiac, Michigan http://www.sae.org/stu-dents/student.htm

SEFI European Society forEngineering Education 32nd Annual Conference September 8-10, 2004 Valencia, Spain www.ntb.ch/SEFI

Skills USA40th National Leadership and Skills Conference June 20-25, 2004 Kansas City, Missouri www.skillsusa.org

TSATechnology StudentAssociation National Conference June 20-24, 2004 Nashville, Tennessee www.tsawww.org

SolidWorksStudent Design Competition

1st

2nd 3rd

SolidWorks Education Calendar of Events:

Spring 2003

Engineering Design With SolidWorks 2003

By Marie and David Planchard

500 pages with tutorial CD

SDC Publications www.schroff.com

$69.95

This book focuses on providing a solid foundation in SolidWorks along with a competency based project

approach. Commands are introduced in a step-by-step manner. Each chapter addresses a progressive learning

approach, lists desired outcomes and usage competencies, and identifies a project with reflective information on

the previous project situation. The book complements the on-line tutorials within SolidWorks.

Introduction to SolidWorks

By Youhe Liu & Jichang Zheng

334 pages, plus companion CD, paperback

Tsinghua University Press www:tup.tsinghua.edu.cn/

CHN¥:38.00

This book gives a systematic introduction to Solidworks installation, sketching, 3D parts, assemblies and drawings,

animation, as well as the Solidworks Web site and Gold Partners, accompanied with drills and a CD. It’s intended

specifically for Solidworks beginners, but can also serve as a foundation for future Mastering SolidWorks series.

The SolidWorks Teacher Guide and Student Courseware

SolidWorks Corporation

384 pages, paperback with companion CD

$75.00 Available from authorized SolidWorks resellers.

Written by educators for educators, the SolidWorks Teacher Guide and Student Courseware offers a competency-

based approach to teaching 3D design concepts, and covers the following curriculum development areas:

comprehensive eight-week lesson plans, syllabus, quizzes and homework assignments, assessment exercises,

correlations to algebra and geometry curricula, reproducible handouts and study sheets. Available in English,

Traditional Chinese, Spanish, and German languages.

Inside SolidWorks 2003

By David Murray

858 pages, paperback

Thomson-Delmar Learning www.delmar.com

$69.00

Fully updated to incorporate all of the newest features and functions of SolidWorks 2003, this edition invites

users to leverage a variety of manufacturing disciplines.

Solid

Learning to Use SolidWorks 2003 - A DVD SeriesBy Doug Baxter280 pages, paperbackDelmar Publishing www.delmarlearning.com$630.00

This DVD has six hours of narrated video clips that teach the use of SolidWorks 2003 software. The DVD containsreview questions, glossary, and ready-made SolidWorks files to use with the tutorials. The video content explains com-plex design concepts and offers step-by-step instructions. Recommended for individual learners or for classroom use.Call for school discount pricing.

NEW

NEW

The Learning Curve 6

Product Design and Development Second Edition

By Karl Ulrich and Steven Eppinger

351 pages, hardbound

McGraw Hill Higher Education www.mhhe.com

$95.00

“Product Design and Development” contains a collection of methods that guide teams in developing new products.

Each chapter focuses on a different method and employs a rich example drawn from industrial practice to

illustrate each step. The book particularly focuses on tools and techniques that draw together members of

cross-functional teams to make sound development decisions. The second edition includes two new chapters:

Product Planning and Concept Testing. The book is supported by a companion Web site, www.ulrich-eppiner.net,

which provides resources for practitioners, students, and instructors.

Graphics Concepts with SolidWorks

By Richard Lueptow and Michael Minbiole

250 pages, paperback

Prentice Hall www.prenhall.com/esource

$22.00 estimated retail

This book is part of Prentice Hall’s E-Source series for introductory engineering. The first part of the book provides

an introduction to basic graphic concepts; the second part involves building and assembling the six parts of a pizza

cutter, including sweeps, lofts, sheet metal, and other functions using the latest release of SolidWorks.

Learning SolidWorks

By Richard Lueptow and Michael Minbiole

214 pages, paperback

Prentice Hall www.prenhall.com

$40.00

An expanded version of “Graphics Concepts With SolidWorks”, this book focuses on user aspects of functionality

to facilitate easy, fast design techniques while encompassing basic design principles.

Disegno Tecnico Industriale

By Emilio Chirone and Stefano Tornincasa

690 pages, paperback

Edizione il capitello www.capitello.it

Written and published in Italy by noted engineering professors Stefano Tornincasa and Emilio Chirone of the

Polytechnic Institute of Turin, this book provides students with a comprehensive guide to visualization, design

process, 3D modeling with SolidWorks, and standard practices in manufacturing. A CD-Rom containing tutorials

and exercises is included with the book.

ReferenceEngineering Graphics & Computer Aided Design

Course Notes and Problems

Douglas H. Baxter and Donald S. Bunk

Prentice Hall Custom Series

204 pages, paperback

http://vig.prenhall.com/

$50.00

An introductory course in solid modeling techniques using SolidWorks 2001 Plus. Lectures and course materials

are provided on three CDs. The text contains theory and course problems. Requires a media player that can

play wmv files.

7 The Learning Curve

The Learning Curve, a newsletter for SolidWorks users working in an educational/academic

setting, is published by SolidWorks Corporation. We welcome your comments, suggestions,

and ideas! Send us email at: tlc@solidworks.com

The Learning CurveSolidWorks Corporation300 Baker AvenueConcord, MA 01742email: tlc@solidworks.com

©2003 by SolidWorks Corporation, a Dassault Systemes S.A. company. All rights reserved. SolidWorks is a registered trademark andFeatureManager, PhotoWorks, and Feature Palette are trademarks of SolidWorks Corporation. All other brand names are recognizedas trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Design: Stoltze Design

SolidWorks Certified Gold Products At A GlanceATR SOFT OYwww.atrsoft.comUtilities

CAD / CAM Componentswww.cadcamcomponents.comIndustrial design

Cadalog, Inc.www.cadalog.com/solidmechComponent Design/Libraries

CAPVIDIAwww.capvidia.comMold Design Software & Data Translation

CYCO Software BVwww.cyco.comMold Design Software & Data Translation

DriveWorks Ltd.www.driveworks.co.ukKnowledge Based Engineering

Eignerwww.eigner.com PDM/ERP

Fast Design Technologieswww.fast-design.comImplementation Tools

Forming Technologies, Inc.www.forming.comSheet Metal Design

Keytech Software GmbHwww.keytech.dePDM/ERP

Manusoft Technologies Pte, Ltd.www.manusoftcorp.comMold Design Software

Maxxsoft GmbHwww.maxxsoft.comPDM/ERP

MechSoft.comwww.mechsoft.comMechanical Engineering

MechWorkswww.mechworks.comPDM/ERP

Modultek Inc.www.solidpdm.comPDM/ERP

Moldflow Corporationwww.moldflow.comMold Design and Analysis

OPTISwww.optis-world.comOptical Design Software

R&B Ltd.www.RnBUSA.comMold Design and Analysis

RealityWave Inc.www.realitywave.comViewing, Rendering, and Collaboration

Revware, Inc.www.revworks.comInsp. Reverse Engineering

SofTech, Inc.www.softech.comManufacturing / CAM Software

SolidCAM, Ltd.www.solidcam.comManufacturing / CAM Software

Solid Dynamicswww.solid-dynamics.comKinematics and Dynamics

SolidPartners, Incwww.solidpartners.comPDM/ERP & Component Design Libraries

SolidTeam GmbHwww.pwnorm.deComponent Design / Libraries

TASys Tolerance Solutionswww.tasysworld.comTolerance Analysis

TekSoft CAD / CAM System, Inc.www.teksoft.comManufacturing

Varatechwww.varatech.comTolerance Analysis

Vision Numericwww.type3.comDesign and Drafting tools

Zeal Solutionswww.circuitworks.co.ukElectronics

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