Bringing Together the SOLIDWORKS UK Community in December
This month the two SOLIDWORKS User Groups (SWUG) in the UK got together for their final meetings of the year. We went along to both of them, meeting fellow users, sponsoring the meetings and presenting too.
The first meeting, UK SWUG NW, got together at DriveWorks HQ on December 3rd. Then SWUGN London met at Plexal on December 5th.
UK SWUG NW
For the past 4 years, UK SWUG NW have held their Christmas meeting here at DriveWorks HQ.
DriveWorks HQ is based just outside of Warrington, a town with a deep industrial heritage. There is still a lot of industry in the town today. Many manufacturers in the area use SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD and this meeting is always a great opportunity for those users to get to know each other.
The theme of the meeting on the 3rd of December was the Importance of SOLIDWORKS in the Northern Powerhouse.
Local wire manufacturer, Locker Group, presented at the meeting about how they use SOLIDWORKS.
Solid Solutions, a local SOLIDWORKS reseller, who provide training and support for the software, also presented about the new features that have been added in the latest software release, SOLIDWORKS 2019.
DriveWorks CEO, Glen Smith presented about Gillette’s personalised 3D printed razor handles. Glen explained how Gillette use SOLIDWORKS and DriveWorks to create customised 3D printed razor handles.
And as with any SWUG meeting, there was of course plenty of pizza, beer and networking!
SWUGN London
SWUGN London is a relatively new group, set up by Kirby Downey to encourage SOLIDWORKS users to get together, improve their SOLIDWORKS skills and share tips and tricks.
Kirby has done a great job of building up the group and the turn out at this year’s December meeting was fantastic.
Of course, an agenda packed with interesting presentations and a cool venue is going to encourage users to come along and this meeting had both!
The meeting was held at Plexal in London. Plexal is a space for innovators and has a big focus on 3D printing. It was the perfect place for a group of engineers who like technology to gather in together. It also provided a great backdrop for the presentations.
Presenters included Cortime who presented about How to Automate Your Design Evaluation Process, Justin Burton who presented on SOLIDWORKS Apps for Kids, Bridie from the DriveWorks team who told the group about Gillette’s personalised 3D printed razors, Daniel Melville, The Man with The Bionic Arm, also presented a very inspiring presentation and won the Amazon Echo Dot donated by DriveWorks to the raffle!
Plexal also provided pizza, a staple for any SWUG meeting!
