Rich Hinten, head coach of a USFirst Robotics Team (high school aged students) based out of Troy, Ohio was looking to teach his students a different program this year to compete at The FIRST Tech Challenge. In previous years Rich has used Creo, but this year he chose another route: SolidWorks. He mentioned he would rather use SolidWorks to share with his students because that’s what he’s using at work and it would be much easier to teach.

Rich contacted Christian Blanc, a FIRST Robotics Alumnus, and current Territory Manager for SolidWorks Education. With the help of Christian, Rich and his students were able to receive a SolidWorks sponsorship. Rich’s son immediately began watching videos on SolidWorks Website and commented, “WOW that looks so much better than what we tried last year.” Rich and his students look primed to take gold this year with the use of SolidWorks.

What’s The FIRST Tech Challenge?

FTC is designed for those who want to compete head to head, using a sports model. Teams of up to 10 students are responsible for designing, building, and programming their robots to compete in an alliance format against other teams. The robot kit is reusable from year-to-year and is programmed using a variety of languages. Teams, including coaches, mentors and volunteers, are required to develop strategy and build robots based on sound engineering principles. Awards are given for the competition as for well as for community outreach, design, and other real-world accomplishments.

Students get to:

• Design, build, and program robots
• Apply real-world math and science concepts
• Develop problem-solving, organizational, and team-building skills
• Compete and cooperate in alliances and tournaments
• Earn a place in the World Championship
• Qualify for over $11 million in college scholarships

More information on the FIRST Tech Challenge can be found here: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/ftc

Launching anything new these days is a feat just in itself but Steve Fye from Span-Tech is taking on the challenge with energy and excitement.

Their first meeting is scheduled for Thursday, October 20, and the Southern Kentucky SolidWorks User Group is planning BIG things.

With a goal to organize a local community of SolidWorks users who want to make the most out of their beloved software, Steve hopes to use this group to help spread knowledge, best practices and more.

Interested parties are asked to submit a simple online registration form which can be found here.

The first meeting is scheduled to begin at 5pm and will include food (always a plus), an open discussion between officers and new members, a presentation of SolidWorks 2012 “What’s New” by our own Chris Snider of 3DVision Technologies and most importantly, a raffle for a Nvidia Quadro 4000 graphics card.

As a supporter of all things SolidWorks, those of us at 3DVision Technologies encourages all users to join a SWUG near them.

For more information on the new Southern Kentucky SolidWorks User Group, click here.