Alibre News June 2008

The 4-Hour Work Week

I'm reading an interesting book by a guy named Timothy Ferriss, “The 4-Hour Work Week”. The book came out in 2007 and is labeled as “The #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller.” As of today, the Wall Street Journal has it ranked as the #5 business book, and the New York Times lists it as #2 on the Hardcover Business Best Sellers list.

I had heard about the book some time ago and wasn’t compelled to read it after I saw a bad review, but a friend gave me a copy so I decided to give it a shot.

Tim defines a group he calls the New Rich versus the “Deferrers,” or “those who save it all for the end only to find that life has passed them by.” He goes on to talk about retirement as “Worst-Case-Scenario Insurance” that is “nothing more than a hedge against becoming physically incapable of working and needing a reservoir of capital to survive.” According to Tim, “Retirement as a goal or final redemption is flawed” for several reasons, but the most compelling to me is this: “It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you are doing during the most physically capable years of your life. This is a non-starter—nothing can justify that sacrifice.” That's pretty hard to disagree with.

Read the rest of the post here.

Until Next Time,

 Greg Milliken, CEO

Alibre Gives Engineer's Business Real Independence
Affordable 3D CAD And FEA Remain Flexible To Changing Projects Demands

Independent consultants have the advantage of being able to work for a variety of companies and on a range of projects, often from the comfort of their own home. This also means they have to be very flexible to whatever the latest project requires, making it necessary to buy software “on the fly” as new challenges arise.

Gary Warburton faces this dilemma as a designer of aerospace structural testing systems for several large aircraft manufacturers. His different roles as a consultant require him to have CAD software that can design and perform FEA analysis while having the interoperability to work with different CAD formats. This gives Gary a difficult problem: how to buy all the software demanded by his different roles without draining his budget.

Problem solved. He uses Alibre Design to handle the demands of his many aerospace projects while staying cost-effective. Read more about how Alibre is working to keep Gary flying solo.

Contest Winner Rides On
Latest Update On The Road To Building Dream Bikes

A few months ago we covered the story of Bill Price, who, despite limited previous experience with 3D CAD software, was able to pick up Alibre Design, design a V-Twin air-cooled motorcycle engine, and win 3rd place in an international contest that pitted him against the best designs from Solidworks, Autodesk, and more.

Since then, Bill has continued to work toward his ultimate goal of completing an entire motorcycle from the ground up. We are pleased to showcase the latest updated images of his completed motorcycle design – all we can say is “Wow!”

Check out some of the latest headlines and press releases about Alibre Design.

Alibre Customer Brings Wheelchairs into the Space Age
Great story of an Alibre user helping to make portable, ultra-durable wheelchairs using aerospace technology.

RedEye RPM and Alibre partner to offer instant rapid prototyping quotes from
directly in Alibre Design
Get an instant quote within the Alibre Design interface, send it securely to RedEye RPM, and receive your completed protoype by mail days later. Yes, it's that easy.

Alibre CAM™ Makes 3D Parametric CAD/CAM Accessible To Everyone
A summary of the latest addition to the Alibre product line, Alibre CAM, and what it means to our continued mission of opening up CAD/CAM to everyone.

In todays tech tip we will use reference sketches to control features that are used to create advanced geometry like sweeps and lofts. We will demonstrate this practice by creating a Wave Spring.

Create A Wave Spring With Reference Sketches

Here's a little extra content provided courtesy of Design News. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Here’s every kid’s dream — a real robot vehicle that actually reads its terrain and makes adjustments in its movement accordingly. Jared Whelan, Matt Craft and Dave Richards created the “versatile robot” which has a sensor that scans the ground and makes adjustments with reverses and turns.

The operator can also remotely select transportation modes. In one mode, the robot’s tracks are raised for steep climbs. It comes with an accelerometer that evaluates the robot’s position relative to gravity. When the robot detects a steep incline, it will accelerate and reconfigure to a lower center of gravity for maximum traction. Once it regains flat ground, the robot reconfigures to its original position.

See How The Robot Reacts