Entries Tagged 'Misc' ↓

The Story

Most if not ALL of the items I design on a daily basis are proprietary which means I cannot share the models with the public.  One of the goals I set this year was to create a complex model in SolidWorks that I COULD share with the SolidWorks/CAD Community.  Over the years I have picked up countless tips and tricks by downloading models and presentations from Paul Salvador, Ed Eaton, Mike Wilson, & Matt Lombard just to name a few.  In my mind it was definitely time to give back to the community and share one myself.

Sometimes inspirations come from the strangest places.  When the Speed Racer Movie came out early this summer, my son got this really cool looking “Matchbox” size car in one of his Happy Meals.  It was the Mach 4 Racer that Speed Racer’s brother Rex drove at the beginning of the movie.  As he was showing it to me I started looking at it thinking to myself, “That would be a cool car to model in SolidWorks.”  I took a few pictures of the car (I was at home and didn’t have access to my NextEngine Scanner) to give myself a bit of a head start by using the Sketch Picture command.  When I started modeling it I wasn’t really sure where I was going to go with it.  The toy was a bit crude in a few places, so I made up my mind early on that I was going to detail the model a bit more vs. the toy car.  I was able to grab a few screen shots of the car in the movie preview and quickly saw there were seemingly endless boundaries for the amount of detail I could put into the model if I had the desire and TIME to do it.  With my hectic schedule, the Blog, the SolidWorks User Group, and doing the Technical Editing for the SolidWorks 2009 Bible, I quickly realized I was probably not going to be able to detail the model just like the car in the movie or to the level that Mike Wilson did on his “original” Speed Racer Mach 5.  If you haven’t checked out Mike’s model, I HIGHLY encourage you to do so.

I had the model about 75% complete when SolidWorks 2009 Beta rolled around but I had to put it on the shelf for a while.  I did sneak in some time to get it complete enough to include in my new Blog header.  Over the last two weeks I finally found the time to finish it out to a level I was satisfied with.  My hope is that those of you out there who want to learn more about surface/complex modeling will find it useful.  With that I am proud to announce that the models have now been posted for download (the links are down further).

Rob Rodriguez - PhotoWorks Rendering Contest

Rob Rodriguez will be featuring the Mach 4 Racer in his November PhotoWorks Rendering contest. In case you are not familiar with his contest, users download the contest model and submit images rendered with either PhotoWorks or PhotoView 360.  Rob posts all the entries on his site, and then everyone votes for their favorite!  The winner receives a prize.  I challenge you - my readers to SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY!  Remember it doesn’t take as long to render models as it used to now that PhotoView 360 is on the scene.  I’d love to see a record number of entries in Rob’s contest.  Make sure you visit Rob’s site for all the details on the contest.

Downloads and Details

OK…let’s get this out of the way first.  This model is available for education and learning purposes only.  The models contained in the zip files below are NOT to be used in any consumer paid training course or pay to access online media without expressed written consent from rickyjordan.com.  I reserve the right to deny use of this model for any purpose deemed by me to be inappropriate.  Copyright 2008 - Ricky Jordan

I have made the model available in two formats.  The first is a native SolidWorks 2009 model.  The main part model contains 339 features and on my laptop takes about 62 seconds for a total rebuild.  The second format is a Parasolid model so users in previous versions of SolidWorks (or other CAD systems) can download the model and view it.  Please note that the model, like the toy, is small scale.  The total length front to back of the car is right around 3.5″.  Below are the links to the downloads:

Mach 4 Racer - SolidWorks 2009 Files

Mach 4 Racer - Parasolid Files

I hope you enjoy the model.  It was alot of fun to create and also presented some good challenges along the way.  Stay tuned…..more to come!

7:37pm - I’m a little behind…thank goodness for DVR!

7:39pm - Into the second episode of Time Warp now - Watching the “Will it Blend guy”

7:40pm - They just blended an iPhone….that was painful to watch….but the marbles are cool!

7:41pm - About to blend lighters! ….Oh yea….BIG Flame!!!  But the Blender didn’t melt!!

7:45pm - Talk about hazardous occupations - Juggling Chainsaws??  What??????

7:46pm - Juggling looks sooooo easy in slow motion!

7:47pm - The guy NEVER moves his eyes while juggling….interesting!

7:48pm - The DVR has caught up…and I’m finally live now!

7:49pm - Juggling 10 pound chainsaws….they “Say don’t try this at home”.  Umm….YEA

7:53pm - I’m not really being persuaded by all the Max Payne commercials.  Not sure why…just don’t really want to see the movie…at least not at the theatre.

7:56pm - Exploding beer bottles….I’m getting thristy!

7:59pm - REALLY like Time Warp.  Great series!  Mental note:  Start checking e-bay for high speed cameras!

8:00pm - MythBusters has begun!!!

8:01pm - More Ninja myths….could be interesting!

8:04pm - Jaimie missed!! (Bow & Arrow practice)

8:05pm - Arrow traveling at 179 mph!  That’s all for arrows!  The fans claimed the speed of the arrow was different further away.  The speed difference was minimal.

8:06pm - Whoa…  A British Ninja?  Anthony Kelly

8:07pm - WOW!  The dude just caught 22 consecutive tennis balls travelling at 85 mph!  I new world record!

8:11pm - Just saw a commercial for the new season of Stormchasers.  The premiere is this Sunday!!  You don’t want to miss it!

8:12pm - LOL! Adam is going to try and catch the 85mph tennis ball..  LOL!!!!  Props to him for trying it!

8:13pm - Tory, Grant, and Kari are up now…going to test underwater blow darts!

8:15pm - LOL!  Tory rubbing animal fat on…then putting on wetsuit…then into a tank of cold water.  The animal fat is supposed to protect against hypothermia…tank is 66 degrees

8:16pm - Tory has been in for 45 minutes…..now he is out!  Props to him for staying in that long!

8:21pm - The British Ninja is going to try to catch and arrow fired 26 feet away traveling 120mph

8:22pm - He missed the first several - then caught one!  WOW!

8:24pm - Tory, Grant, and Kari - building bamboo blow guns!  Except Kari who slipped in a metal sleeve inside hers without the guys knowing! 

8:27pm - I wonder if Adam got his Segway for FREE in exchange for riding it all the time on the show?

8:32pm - Still thirsty…will have to wait till next commercial break! 

8:37pm - Now the Ninja is trying to catch and arrow in full battle situation.  Missed several…only caught one!

8:46pm - Jaimie is punching Adam (in protective gear) 300 plus pounds of force from Jaimie at full swing…the ninja from 3 inches away reached 210 pounds of force!  WOW!

8:55pm - Blow darts from under water had some success…myth is plausible!

8:57pm - Ninja’s revenge - Ninja runs at Adam…can he fire and reload before Ninja gets there…. (20 paces away)

8:58pm - Nope…Ninja got there before Adam can reload…he’s done! LOL!

9:00pm - Prototype This! is ON!

9:01pm - Road Rage…That never happens does it?

9:02pm - Car that will slow down when you get mad??  Coooool!

9:04pm - Mind controlling a video game…is it for real??

9:07pm - Interesting….destroying a car to find a weak spot.  Will use a demolition derby to test driver emotions to help detect road rage.  Car to be remote controlled and drivers will be in virtual cockpit driving them….how are they gonna pull this off in 10 days?

9:11pm - Testing car control software/hardware using and R/C car.  Driving the R/C car using a video game steering wheel set.  Interesting….as a former professional R/C racer it seems to me it would be harder to drive an R/C car that way…

9:19pm - Measuring heart rate, breath rate, and the amount you sweat to get bio feedback to determine road rage.

9:21pm - Having a “Chill Zone” on the side of the road for road rage drivers to get mandantorily parked sounds good to me!

9:24pm - Servos on the steering, brakes, accelerator, and a kill switch integrated into the demolition derby cars!  It worked!  That’s a mighty big R/C car!

9:33pm - Hooked into the mind control software so that when an object moved in the software….power is applied to an actuator that bent a spoon!  It worked….Zoz had to concentrate though!

9:38pm - They are having to write some serious software for this to work.  Did they really do all this in 10 days?

9:43pm - Wow!  They just used mind control to put the car in drive!  Once the driver gets aggravated the sensors in the the mind control headset trigger and the car is put back into neutral!

9:55pm - Let the demolition derby begin.  3 out of the 4 cars are working.

9:59pm - The roadrage car worked!  When the drivers got aggrivated…their cars stopped!  They had to hold concentration or they were dead in the water.  The interesting thing about the mind control software is that it is tough to actually prove that it is working as advertised.  This isn’t the first time I have heard of this technology so I’ll buy in!  Pretty cool.  I’m not sure if we will see something like this or not….but it sure was an interesting prototype!  Looking forwrd to next week!

10:00pm….I’m out!  Have a great night folks!

It’s been a busy year and is time for an overdue VACATION!!  I leave early tomorrow morning for Walt Disney World.  I’ll be there for 1 complete fun filled week!  More than likely you won’t see any posts out of me until I get back.  I’m sure some of my fellow Blog Squad members will keep you busy with their coverage of the SolidWorks Press Event next week so make sure you are on the lookout for that.

Stay tuned….more to come! (When I get back!  )

I have switched the Comment system for this Blog over to DISQUS.  If you follow me on Twitter you may have noticed that I have been pondering this for a few weeks.  After having to moderate 37 “undesirable” comments today (I’m not going to say the word) I decided to go ahead and make the move.  It looks like most if not all of my Legacy Comments have been imported, so I would say so far it is a success!

DISQUS has some really cool features.  I would highly encourage you to register a profile at the DISQUS site.  If your register, you can create an avatar that is viewable on this site and most other Blogs using DISQUS.  One of the REALLY cool features is that you can go to the DISQUS site and view comments you left on any of the Disqus Community Blogs all in one place!  You can also see if there have been any replies to your Comments since DISQUS is commonly setup with a threaded theme.  SolidSmack, The SW Geek, & SolidWorks Heard! are also running Disqus.  Thanks to all of those guys for answering some of my questions!

Other Happenings

I’m in the final leg of a project that is taking up most of my time outside of work.  If you follow me on Twitter….you probably know already what it is.  I’ll post more about it in the coming weeks.  Later in the Fall I plan to finish up the Mach 4 Racer that is shown in my Blog Header image and then make it available to anyone who wants it!

Stay tuned….more to come!

I have finally gotten my new e-mail address set up.  You may have seen this address already if you are an e-mail subscriber.  Due to an incorrect network setting it did not start working till late last night.  I’m not going to write the e-mail out in this post because there is no sense in giving the spammers a head start.  If you want to contact me, click on the Contact link at the top of any of my Blog pages, it will take you to a page with an e-mail link.  The e-mail address is pretty much what you would expect it to be if you use a little imagination. 

It’s been a week long project but rickyjordan.com now has a new host and all new site design!  Since my Blog was launched in June of 2006 it has been part of the designsmarter.typepad community which is funded by SolidWorks.  The great thing about the whole experience is that even though they are providing the space, no one at SolidWorks has ever once said or done anything to control the content of mine or any of the other Blogs in that community.  It has been a wonderful experience and I personally want to thank them for providing it to me.  I honestly don’t believe you would see as many Blogs on SolidWorks today without their help in starting so many through the designsmarter.typepad Community.  I can’t say for sure if I would have started my Blog without their help and encouragement.

So now you must be asking yourself, “If it is so wonderful, then why are you leaving it?”.  I have some big plans for this site.  Some of which I probably won’t complete for another couple of months.  Some of those plans call for a Blog format that is much more flexible than what Typepad has to offer.  Wordpress is by far the most flexible & popular opensource Blogging platform around.  Simply put, it fits in best with some of the things I want to do to this site.  The Wordpress software itself is free so all I had to do was select a Host.  I ended up going with Bluehost.com.  The experience has been wonderful thus far.  I have UNLIMITED bandwidth & UNLIMITED data storage!  (Yes you read that correctly.)  Now to be fair I’m sure that one wishing to take advantage of this could exploit it and get a call from the guys at Bluehost.  I’m not going to load up servers with massive amounts of data anytime soon and it provides extra piece of mind for me not to have to worry about bandwidth or space.  Not to be lost in this is the fact that they have 24/7 tech support and a feature packed control panel.  It’s nice to have options!

Anyway, here are a few specifics I want to make sure my readers know.  If all goes according to plan, the Feedburner Feed WILL REMAIN THE SAME.  The feed still has Typepad in the address but I left it there so folks hopefully won’t have to update their RSS readers.  The jury is still out on this…keep your fingers crossed for me!  Also I have gone to painstaking trouble to make sure that almost ALL my URLs from existing posts remain the same.  This took some tedious work in both the Wordpress admin panel as well as direct edits to the database.  Only 5 of my 150+ posts have new URLs in the changeover.  I will try to get those URLs forwarded as soon as I can.  I’ve still got a few little things I’ll be updating on the pages but everything for the most part should be pretty complete.  Something new with the new site is a search tool!  (FINALLY!)  In my testing thus far it seems to be really quick!  Try it out for yourself!

Thanks to some of my fellow Bloggers for giving me some greatly needed feedback on Wordpress and site design concepts.  Also thanks to Patrick Cook at SolidWorks for helping me transition this site with relative ease.

As I always say, STAY TUNED…there is MUCH MORE TO COME!!

UPDATED 8/1/08: I just updated the site with a new custom header.  A special thanks goes out to Josh Mings of SolidSmack who is the Photoshop master behind the new header.  Great Work Josh!  You’ll have to give me some lessons sometime!

A coworker of mine sent this to me today. (Thanks Johnnie!)  This is one of the coolest looking Robotics projects I have seen to date.  Check out the Boston Dynamics site to find out about BigDog.  The video is definitely a must see.  I wonder if BigDog was designed in SolidWorks?  A little Google searching yields some evidence to suggest it could have.  Enjoy and have a GREAT weekend!

You will see some changes to this Blog soon.  Generally I have been posting articles with MANY details in written form with an occasional video thrown in.  I am thinking of doing MORE videos in the future with maybe a little less writing when it comes to Tips and possibly Reviews.  My question for the readers is what would you rather see?  Do you prefer videos or written posts or both?  Please leave your comments below.

Over the last month there is one word that has been consistently plastered all over tech sites across the Internet.  iPhone.  If you haven’t heard anything about the iPhone 3G yet I think we need to either check your pulse or take some dynamite to that rock you have been living under.  The iPhone 3G is the much heralded next generation version of the original iPhone that was launched around 1 year ago.

After many hours of window shopping on the web and in the Apple Store I took the plunge today and purchased an iPhone 3G.  It’s been an absolute BLAST so I thought I would share the experience with you.

The day started pretty early.  I left the house with a 30 minute drive this morning ahead of me to the AT&T store in Huntsville.  I arrived at the store around 6:55am which was slightly more than two hours ahead of the time the store opened.  I had no idea what to expect when I showed up but was pleased to find that there were only a handful of people in line ahead of me.  Cool beans!!

I had thought ahead the night before and re-armed my SolidWorks iPod with some great Podcasts to listen to in case I got board.  Turns out I didn’t need it! The guys in line around me were a total blast to talk to so the two hours passed very quickly!  One of my co-workers was also there which made it all the more fun.  (More on that later.)  It didn’t hurt that I brought a chair with me!  (Hey - If your gonna sit for two hours why not sit comfortably?)

Around 8:30am word starts to make it through the crowd that this store did not get very many phones in yesterday’s shipment and that no 16GB models were available today.  Three out of the 4 guys around me in line were really wanting the 16GB model vs. the 8GB model.  Since I was around 9th in line (I think) I figured I was in pretty good shape to get one.

As nine o’clock approaches my wife and kids show up.  We thought we would make a day of it and involve the whole family.  Also of key importance was the fact that my wife’s iPhone needed to be there for my purchase.  Here’s why….  Last October my wife got an iPhone and I got a Samsung BlackJack.  The primary reason I didn’t get an iPhone as well was due to the lack of support for Microsoft Exchange.  (Which is of course now included with the 2.0 software update.)   One of the stipulations to get the iPhone for $199 was that you were either eligible for a phone upgrade (which I was NOT) or that you owned an original iPhone (Which my wife did).  My wife (thank you dear!) pretty much gave up her upgrade so I could get one.  They essentially upgraded her phone, then swapped her number back to her original phone.  It took a little longer at the store because of this but it was well worth it as I would have had to pay $399 under any other circumstance to get an iPhone 3G.

The “line rumors” were correct as no 16GB versions were available today.  I wanted an 8GB model with a Black case.  Lucky for me this is what they received!  The folks that waited so long in line that wanted 16GB models were able to order it for guaranteed delivery so all was not lost for them.  We were in and out of the store in about 35 minutes.  Not bad!

Remember the co-worker I mentioned earlier?  He works in our IT department and was nice enough to hang around a few extra minutes to make sure my new iPhone worked properly with our company Exchange server.  (Thanks David!)

After leaving the store we went to eat breakfast and do a little shopping.  While doing this I managed to get my first tweet out on Twitter with my new iPhone 3G!  We ended up getting back home a little before noon.  This entire afternoon has been devoted to setting up my additional mail accounts, cleaning and revising my contacts database, exploring the App Store, learning about all the settings, and oh yea….writing this post!

So far I have pulled down a few FREE apps from the App Store.  Those include Twitterific Free Edition, Facebook, & Google.  I’ve got several more I’m looking at but I figured these were the “must haves” to get me started.

Setting up my multiple e-mail accounts were pretty darned easy!  The only one that I had to do a little research on was my SolidWorks User Group mail setup.  It is an e-mail address hosted through Yahoo so I had to tinker with it a bit but got it working without much effort.  Google has REALLY got their act together on the Gmail setup.  They have GREAT instructions posted at their iPhone support site.  The only odd thing is that they DON’T have you use Apple’s Gmail link in the setup.  Nevertheless, as long as it works smoothly, it doesn’t bother me!

So far I absolutely LOVE this device!  The shear size of the display and the touch screen capability makes this a great device to browse the web without having to breakout the laptop.  Most other PDA phones (BlackJack included) have screens so small that it makes it VERY difficult to do much web browsing.  The WiFi connection has been flawless and so far the 3G connection has been “good” at my house.  All in all, I’m VERY happy with the device and am really glad I upgraded.

I’ll post updates in the coming weeks to let you know how I like it after getting some “seat time” with it.  In the future I plan to write about the “Social Experience” of owning an iPhone.  You’ll have to stay tuned to catch that……more to come!

There seems to be LOTS of things going on right now.  SolidWorks 2009 Beta 1 is just past it’s first week of Beta Testing.  I really like what I am seeing so far and there are more goodies to come in Beta 2.  Check it out at the Customer Portal if you haven’t already.  (Must be on subscription to participate.)

I’ve been working on a “project for fun” that I’ll be ready to share soon.  Much of the work I do cannot be shared with the SolidWorks Community due to proprietary circumstances so this little project was designed from the beginning as something I CAN share.  The only hint I will drop on it is that it has roots in a movie that was recently released.  Stay tuned for this in the coming weeks.

I also had another rather LARGE side project dropped in my lap that is due to begin hopefully next week.  This one will take about two months to complete and should be VERY interesting.  :-)  More on that later as well.

Stay tuned…..more to come soon!