Learn How to Design a Kick-Butt Remote Control in SolidWorks

If you haven’t checked out the latest in SolidWorks training from the industrial design training site cadjunkie yet, you’re missing out!

In this SolidWorks 201 Training Series, industrial designer Adam O’Hern elevates SolidWorks ninjas to even more lethal status with more real-world design techniques inspired by real-world processes. Whether you’re an aspiring design rockstar or an above-average Maker, this course empowers product designers of all kinds to use SolidWorks as a powerful creative tool.

For this week only, the first seven videos of the SolidWorks 201 series are free to try out and use for creating a remote control design. If you want more smack-tastic remote control design goodness, a premium membership will give you full-access to not only the rest of the series but also the entire cadjunkie library.

Series Overview I (Using the Series)

In this series, we’ll be working on a fictional remote control speaker system. Most importantly, we’re going to be emphasizing on looking at ways we can work with multiple people. From the engineering data to the graphic details, we’ll be taking a look at creating one sweet remote control!

new topics:

• Overview of Remote Control Series

Series Overview II (The Design Process)

In this video, we’re going to clear some common myths about the ‘linear’ design process and take a look at how the modern day design process works.

new topics:

• Overview of the Design Process

01: Setting Up the Sprint

We’ve established that the design process is not linear and oftentimes not predictable. What we can control however, is our flexibility and planning within the design process. In this video, we’re going to go over the concept of ‘sprints’, which is essentially a way of organizing individual components that make up a design process.

new topics:

• What is a ‘sprint’?
• Save part in ‘external file’
• Proper nomenclature practices

02: Iterations

In this video, we’ll start on our first sprint for our remote design: Ideation. Although a large amount of ideation is traditionally done on paper with a pencil, it can help to ‘sketch’ within SolidWorks as well. Let’s take a look at setting up your files and some tricks for getting those initial forms out there.

new topics:

• Setup your file to quickly throw out shapes
• Quick tip for creating a ‘domed’ feature on a rectangular form
• Workflow for creating multiple iterations of the same initial ‘sketch’

03: Organization and Appearances

Assuming that we have dozens upon dozens of ideas from our ‘Ideation Sprint’, let’s say we’re ready to pick an iteration and run with it to the next sprint. In this video, we’ll dive head first into our ‘Envelope Sprint’ and take a look at saving files that can be shared with other design team members or departments.

new topics:

• File naming within the Sprint Folders
• Setup and name a new ‘Top Level’ design assembly
• Mating origin of imported part to origin of new assembly
• Changing appearance of model (color, transparency, etc)

04: Setting Up the Master Assembly (Part I)

One of the more kick-butt features of working iteratively is that we can start over (and over and over…) with each iteration. Anything we may have done wrong we can fix in the next iteration. Now that we have a good idea of what we want to move forward with, we’ll take a look at putting together a ‘Master Model’.

new topics:

• Why have a master model?
• Create a new plane to reference center of an object
• Mating planes to lock object to center

05: Setting Up the Master Assembly (Part II)

We’ve established that when working on one project with multiple ‘brains’ (ie industrial designers, mechanical engineers, etc), it’s important to work so that everybody can collaborate. In this video, we’re going to continue working on our master model with that in mind.

new topics:

• Working in context…why or why not?
• Building the envelope

To download the rest of the course or sign up for a streaming access membership, head over to the SolidWorks 201 Course page.

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