3 Takeaways from my First CAD Course
3 Takeaways from my First NX Course
A few months ago, I didn’t respect what C-A-D stood for. Now I’m sitting in a Swoosh classroom with five engineers learning about the fundamentals of NX.
I just started at Swoosh and spent my first month endlessly researching before realizing I wouldn’t fully understand the software unless I learned how to use it. Here’s 3 takeaways I got from attending our NX CAD Fundamentals class.
1. You don’t have to know much to learn a lot.
For someone who’s never touched a CAD program, I surprised myself with how easy NX was to navigate. I didn’t expect to keep up with the other students, but I could!
The newest engineer in the group, a recent graduate, was able to pick up the interface as quickly as the long-time engineers.
After just the 5-day course, I feel like I could fake my way into any engineering design department. If anyone’s hiring a designer, I might know a guy.
2. Different doesn’t always mean better… but in this case it does.
If you think politics is divisive, try talking to engineers about their preferred CAD program. Students with loyalty to a different program approached NX and our instructor with a bit of skepticism. Can NX do what my old program can? The answer is probably yes (and probably better).
Lesson after lesson, our instructor Garrett Koch would show off some automated feature that the students were used to performing manually. One feature I was impressed with was the ability to predict what you’re revising based on historical data. This, combined with NX’s synchronous technology makes product revisions a breeze.
I work at Swoosh so I’ve drank the Kool Aid. But after 5 days getting to know NX, the other students did too.
3. Buckle up.
My instructor did not waste any time getting down to business – and for good reason. There’s a LOT in NX to cover and this was just the fundamentals. He’s been training for 24 years and has every aspect NX memorized, but never sped past a topic if we weren’t all on the same page.
Working on the mock parts, we not only practiced how to perform a certain functionality but multiple ways it can be done. This way you can pick the method that works best for your specific product or process.
If you’re planning on taking a course in the near future, keep these three things in mind:
- Anyone can do it
- Keep an open mind
- Get ready to learn
I’ve already reserved my seat in the next CAD advanced class.
How many hours of training did you receive, and do you mind sharing the topics covered? In my company we teach an 8 hour Introduction to NX, which should not be taken prior to attending an 8 hour Introduction to Teamcenter. After the NX Introduction class we do offer additional training based on discipline specific classes, like piping, structure, etc. I am wondering if your 5 days of training were 4 hours at a time.
The 5-day training class was 8 hours each day. The instructor provided use-case activities – worked on in between lectures. For the NX CAD Fundamentals class, we covered topics, including:
• NX User Interface and Gateway Application
• Part File Interrogation
• Assembly Modeling
• Sketching
• Feature Modeling and Editing
• Datum Features
• Design Features
• Detail Features
• Synchronous Modeling
• Drafting (Master Model & Non-Master Model)