Last day of the conference! I woke up even later than yesterday, and definitely missed breakfast. Ooops!
Today's general session continued the awesomeness trend. They started out with Riley, a professional lock-picker that used SolidWorks to design an unpickable lock. He's also used the program to assisted with an antenna system to measure air quality and to design a system for attaching to space debris. Cool! Oh, and did I mention he's only 13 years old?! Yep. At that age, I spent all my time playing text-based video games, alphabetizing my baseball card collection, and blushing/running away from girls...
After Riley, the final guest speaker came as quite a shock - Kevin Bacon!!!
Can't you tell?!
No kidding. I'm still a little unsure as to what exactly his connection to SolidWorks/engineering is... Perhaps it's enough that he was in Apollo 13 with Tom Hanks, who played the role of Jim Lovell? I'm not really sure. Regardless, it was fun hearing his take on the importance of engineering and the significant problems he thinks we'll need to overcome. Plus, I'm just going to assume that I'm in one of the background crowd scenes in the SolidWorks World 2011 highlights video, meaning that I now have a Bacon number of 1. Anyone up for a game of Six Degrees??
After the general session, I took another stroll around the Partner Pavilion. It's basically a gigantic showroom filled with companies that partner with SolidWorks, offer technical support and training, or simply make something awesome with the program and want to show it off. It's basically geek heaven...
A view from above
More delicious free food
Robotic arms
A fully submerged computer (I wonder if you could put fish in it???)
A chopper designed completely in SolidWorks
Star Wars memorabilia made in a 3D Printer
A desert racer
The ultimate engineering office - remote-control floating chair (powered by an iPhone), 3 wide-screen monitors, a fighter-pilot helmet, and even an artificial waterfall!!
Despite all the fun, the real reason I'm here is to learn, and the first class of the day was the reason my boss let me come - designing solar power equipment in SolidWorks! A huge component of solar cell design is how to track the sun, something that's crucial to our company's work in insulating satellites. While the presenter didn't go into sun tracking as much as I would have liked, I did pick up a few potential leads. Plus, I'm pretty sure that throughout the conference I've found solutions to at least a dozen other problems we've been having over the last year... Needless to say, work should be pretty busy the next few months!!
I had to cut the last class short so I could hop on the bus and make it to the airport in time for my return flight. I was a little nervous about the Nerf gun in my backpack going through the scanner, so I asked the lady at the front desk whether or not I'd be okay. Excuse me, ma'am, but I was, um, given this, uhh, Nerf-toy-foam-dart-shooter-thing... I did everything in my power to get my point across without saying gun. I'm sure it's not quite as bad as saying bomb on an airplane, but it still didn't seem like a good idea! Fortunately, after scanning my bag three times and getting a second (and third and even fourth) opinion from the other security guards, I was handed my bag and allowed to exit the security area. Little did she know I was just the first of several hundred Nerf-wielding SolidWorks attendees about to fly home...
Rather than foring an alliance and waging an epic suction-cup war on TSA, I spent my short time before my flight reflecting on the week, thankful for the opportunity and excited to come home. But rather than getting too melancholy, I'll leave you with a few random pics from the week:
Riverwalk
Riverwalk, cont.
'Rock This Way' - fork doing the rock fist
Coyote Ugly Bar
San Antonio skyline
So long, San Antonio!! As I exited the airport and returned to the Minnesota tundra, I was greeted by the most beautiful face I could possibly imagine - my loving fiancée, here to pick me up. A perfect way to bookend any trip!!
No comments:
Post a Comment