It’s the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. For many of us, that means there’s a lull in the amount of stuff that has to be done – be it work-related or elsewhere – leaving room for extra activities.
So, if you’re already bored of that book you said you’d always wanted to read or want a distraction from planning out the 2022 project plan (why start now?), why not peruse through some Onshape blogs.
We’ve made it easy for you by pulling together the top 10 blogs of 2021 (in no particular order). This list will catch you up to all things Onshape and hopefully pique your interest in some great features Onshape has to offer.
Let’s get going:
2021 Onshape Design Competition Winners
PTC’s Eugenia Camacho holds the 2021 Onshape Design Competition championship belt.
Who doesn’t like friendly competition among peers? Especially if you win a WWE-inspired championship belt?
Head on over to our announcement blog that goes into detail about the winners of the 2021 Onshape Design Competition, their designs and some more fun tidbits. To prep for the 2022 competition, perhaps it might be a good idea to learn about last year’s winners?
Make Your Own Box
Product design engineer and the co-founder of informal, Sam Holland, contributed to our blog with one of the most popular posts of the year.
Holland goes into detail about how he worked on a design for Aloe Care using Onshape. He talks about Onshape tools that made designing easier, like sheet metal design and Sharing features, and gives step-by-step instructions on how to do it yourself!
Onshape Live ’21
Did you know we held our first-ever user conference in March? Well, probably, since the blog announcing the event was one of the most popular blogs in 2021!
In the blog, our very own Jon Hirschtick, Onshape founder, talks about all the great stuff that was planned for the event. Take a look yourself and take note – Onshape Live ’22 is just around the corner.
DHL and Digital Manufacturing
DHL, yes, the shipping logistics behemoth, runs an internal program called the“Start-Up Lab” that aims to drum up fresh ideas and new solutions to old problems. Out of that lab came the Digital Manufacturing Group, which uses Onshape to design and build automated packaging equipment and 3D printed modular conveyor belts.
The blog, “How the DHL Product Development Team Drives Change From the Digital to the Physical World,” details the DHL group’s workflow and how Onshape has improved it.
What’s the Onshape Associate Exam?
As you may know, Onshape has a stellar education team that provides resources to educators and students alike. One of those resources is the Certified Onshape Associate exam, which tests Onshape users’ understanding of Onshape’s part modeling, multi-part modeling, basic assembly design, drawing knowledge, and sharing and collaboration tools.
In the blog, “Why Students Should Take the Certified Onshape Associate Exam,” we spoke to educators about how valuable the exam has been to students and their careers.
Avidbots and the Search for a New CAD Platform
A robot that cleans floors automatically. A dream come true by the one and only Avidbots. They developed Neo, the fully autonomous floor-scrubbing robot that works at airports, shopping malls, hospitals and other commercial spaces.
You guessed it: The Avidbots team uses Onshape! In one of our blogs, the Avidbots team praises Onshape’s collaboration capabilities and discusses future plans (and how cloud-native CAD is moving those plans forward).
State of Product Design Report
Source: The State of Product Development and Hardware Design 2021
Last year, we asked product design teams to assess their strengths and weaknesses in productivity, innovation, workplace flexibility and more. The survey produced some interesting findings on goal setting, performance and the stark differences in opinion between managers and engineers.
We summarize “The State of Product Development and Hardware Design 2021” report in this blog, so read on to get more details.
Using CAD at School
Over the past year, we’ve been highlighting some amazing educators who are working to bridge the gap between students and STEM. One of those educators is Kathryn Harmon from Neah-Kah-Nie School District in Rockaway Beach, Oregon.
She transformed a computer lab into a STREAMLab (STEM, plus reading and art), which has helped her get students to expand their interests.
Grabbing Students’ Interest
High school educator Katie Douglass runs a “Pop Culture Robot Challenge” every year to get engineering students excited about design. Douglass also teaches students how to make their own chainmail and is an advisor to the school’s Knitting Society, Warhammer club and Motorsports team.
As another educator we highlighted over the last year, Douglass tells us how she uses Onshape to drum up excitement for design in her engineering classes as well as the many extracurricular activities she leads.
A CAD for Business
As our last top blog of 2021, hear business leaders from Garrett Motion, Kichler Lighting and Beta Technologies tell us why their teams switched to cloud-native Onshape. For these three businesses, Onshape solved issues that plagued workflows and the tools they needed for future growth.
Happy New Year!