The Silicon Valley ProEngineer Expo at Tyco Electronics in Menlo Park was a tremendous success. The group is very lucky to be associated with leading local companies such as Tyco Electronics who are willing to host group meetings and events at their facilities.  There were more than 150 attendees at this event from over 90 Northern California companies. The popularity and attendance of the user group meetings are getting bigger and bigger each quarter. We are expecting the biggest group yet at the next one at De Anza College.
 
It was great to see the Pro Engineer community coming together to collaborate and share stories and techniques with one another. During the event I ran into a gentleman who designs snow board bindings for aggressive enthusiasts. I asked him how he found out about the event and he said through a friend who is a Pro E user. He quoted “I can’t believe the value these events provide from a product design standpoint. As a business owner and a designer it helps me tremendously in time savings to see how others are using cutting edge development tools.” Through our discussion he explained that he used Pro Engineer to a very minimal amount of its capabilities. Now having seen how others are using the various tools such as ISDX (Interactive surface design) he is very excited to get on board.
 
Ed Stevenson and the team from Pelco set up a demo version of their surveillance cameras displaying the product features in live demonstrations. Spectra Physics’ Dragos Stanesco demonstrated an active laser among their product line which is seen as the best in the land. Specialized and Fox had their products displayed by the biggest bike vendor in the Bay Area.  (http://mikesbicyclecenter.com). Brian Costello from Tyco Electronics also was displaying their most recent connectors. Overall the expo that was held in the main lobby was the best one yet. Not only could you see some of the newest technologies and toys but also talk to people about the newest methodologies in rapid prototyping. As a spectator of the event I was amazed at the popularity within the vendors and the networking/discussions that were happening.

 
Full service manufacturing companies offering services for machined products, sheet metal products, assemblies and painting were also represented.  Full service manufacturing has become a standard in Northern California allowing the vast number of product development companies in the area to outsource prototyping and manufacturing of their products more efficiently. Even smaller machine shops are gearing to provide more services than they have traditionally provided in the past. Bill and his team from Galgon Industries were there to explain their processes and how they offer everything from design-sheet metal fabrication-PCB Production and Test-assembly. Having been in the industry for some years now it is amazing to see how far design and manufacturing has come. Being at the user group really lets you feel the high-tech energy here in the Silicon Valley.
 
The presentations that were given were very informative. I spoke to one designer from a company in the east bay who wanted to stay anonymous who said “I really enjoyed the presentation by Frog design. Although the product was different then the current project I am working on now I got a feel for their process and learned many shortcuts that I can implement.” Jason Petersen from PTC gave a presentation on one of the newer modules added to PTC’s library EFX (Expert Framework Extension). His presentation showed an automated process that takes the time consuming work (holes, joints, brackets, structural components) and automates the through a GUI. Dragos from Spectra Physics gave a great presentation on how they standardized on Pro Engineer and the benchmark they made against other CAD platforms (Solidworks, Unigraphics). Finally Ed, Karen and the Pelco team traveled up from Clovis to share their use of Projectlink with the group. It was very impressive and the presenters came from other departments (doc control etc) so you were able to see the impact that PTC has on an entire companies process.
 
Overall the event was a huge success. It wrapped up with Nils and the NxRev team giving away thousands of dollars worth of prizes. Anything from 3D Labs graphics cards to Logitech mice to Leapfrog Toys, and even a Spaceball. It was a ton of fun to see everyone and take a couple hours out of the grueling work day. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in my self-contained working environment I forget all the activity that resides around me. We really hope to see everyone again at the next meeting in a few weeks at De Anza College. The line up is looking to be awesome with many great prizes to be raffled. See you then~