If you have a serious interest in SolidWorks and are not already a Certified Solidworks Expert (CSWE), you might find it very advantageous to your personal and professional satisfaction to begin a personal education project of working toward earning the CSWE credential ... so that you can be appropriately recognized by colleagues, employers, customers and clients as being a "go to" person when it comes to anything about SolidWorks, parametric modeling and virtual development. In order to do this, you will need to pass the CSWE exam which features hands-on challenges in some of these areas:
- Lofts
- Sweeps
- In-context assembly changes
- Imported part modification
- Belts and chains
- Sketch blocks
- Multi-bodies
- In-context assembly design
- Sketch pictures
- Spring modeling
- Move/Copy bodies
- Split tool
- Successfully passed the Certified Solidworks Professional (CSWP) exam. A CSWP is an individual that has successfully passed our advanced skills examination. Each CSWP has proven their ability to design and analyze parametric parts and moveable assemblies using a variety of complex features in SolidWorks.
- Successfully passed at least three CWSP advanced topic exams; the advanced topics currently available are: Sheet Metal, Weldments, Surfacing, Mold Tools, Finite Element Analysis (FEA).
So before you can think about earning the CSWE, you will need to pass the CSWP exam. The CSWP exam features hands-on challenges in these three segments:
Segment 1: (90 Minutes)
Segment 2: (40 Minutes)
Segment 3: (80 Minutes)
Standard SolidWorks tools that may be covered in the exam include:
Of course, the CSWP exam would daunting enough for even experienced SolidWorks users ... earning the Certified SolidWorks Expert designation takes you into another realm of expectations. Sure, there are more hurdles and exams to be passed first, but if you intend to effectively USE the credential afterward, people will have higher expectations of you AFTER they learn that you have this designation -- you can call yourself an expert if you've passed the tests based on your study of what's in different books and the designation is a nice feather in your cap, particularly at performance review time ... but you're knowledge will tend to be stagnant and useless or even dangerous if you develop the habits right now to always work at staying current and being especially relevant ... or you won't be the "go to" expert, even if you have passed the tests.
Regardless of what is required to pass all of the exams, the only really legitimate PRACTICAL way to gain this expertise is through practical experience AND continually sharing, developing and extending your knowledge with the practical expertise of others who share your serious interest in Solidworks. Since we live in rapidly changing times and increasingly dynamic product development environments, you just can't learn fast enough from reading books or attending training seminars ... although continuing your education is definitely necessary.
To be a legitimate expert, you need to accelerate your ability to know what advanced users will be doing tomorrow... this is not about just listening to marketing hype or just finding out about new features that the SolidWorks sales guys are excited about, although you need to do that, too. Your first order of business is to find a way to accelerate the development of your expertise by studying and discussing SolidWorks with other users with current project in industry who share the intensity of your interest in SolidWorks. You need to be thinking about how they could be experimenting with ways to make SolidWorks and other tools even more useful, more powerful for product development.
In other words, if you really want to consider yourself a relevant expert, it goes beyond just understanding the software ... you need to understand how users will be practically putting Solidworks to work and testing its limits on their projects tomorrow... you need to immerse yourself in the SolidWorks community; find out where the traps, pitfalls and opportunities are ... you must work at becoming more networked; you must know how to use all of the tools of the Solidworks Customer Portal and forums and then find and join a SolidWorks Users Group and MAKE YOUR OWN CONTRIBUTION TO A RAPIDLY EVOLVING BODY OF KNOWLEDGE.
Segment 1: (90 Minutes)
- Create a part from a drawing
- Use linked dimensions and equations to aid in modeling
- Use of equations to relate dimensions
- Update of parameters and dimension sizes
- Mass property analysis
- Modification of geometry on initial part to create a more complex part
Segment 2: (40 Minutes)
- Creating configurations from other configurations
- Changing configurations
- Mass properties
- Changing features of an existing SolidWorks part
Segment 3: (80 Minutes)
- Creating an assembly
- Adding parts to an assembly
- Doing collision detection when moving a part in an assembly
- Mates
- Replacing a part with another part in an assembly
- Creating a coordinate system
- Using a coordinate system to perform mass properties analysis
Standard SolidWorks tools that may be covered in the exam include:
- Sketch entities - lines, rectangles, circles, arcs, ellipses, centerlines
- Sketch tools - offset, convert, trim
- Sketch relations
- Boss and cut features - extrudes, revolves, sweeps, lofts
- Fillets and chamfers
- Draft
- Shell
- Hole Wizard
- Linear, circular and fill patterns
- Linked dimensions
- Equations
- Mirror
- Dimensions
- Feature conditions – start and end
- Multi-body parts
- Rib
- Feature scope
- Mass properties
- Move/Delete face
- Materials
- Restraints
- Inserting components - new and existing
- Standard mates and advanced mates
- Reference geometry – planes, axis, mate references
- In-context features
- Interference detection
- Suppression states
- Move/Rotate component
- Assembly features
- Collision detection in an assembly
- External references
- Design tables
- Dimensions and model items
Of course, the CSWP exam would daunting enough for even experienced SolidWorks users ... earning the Certified SolidWorks Expert designation takes you into another realm of expectations. Sure, there are more hurdles and exams to be passed first, but if you intend to effectively USE the credential afterward, people will have higher expectations of you AFTER they learn that you have this designation -- you can call yourself an expert if you've passed the tests based on your study of what's in different books and the designation is a nice feather in your cap, particularly at performance review time ... but you're knowledge will tend to be stagnant and useless or even dangerous if you develop the habits right now to always work at staying current and being especially relevant ... or you won't be the "go to" expert, even if you have passed the tests.
Regardless of what is required to pass all of the exams, the only really legitimate PRACTICAL way to gain this expertise is through practical experience AND continually sharing, developing and extending your knowledge with the practical expertise of others who share your serious interest in Solidworks. Since we live in rapidly changing times and increasingly dynamic product development environments, you just can't learn fast enough from reading books or attending training seminars ... although continuing your education is definitely necessary.
To be a legitimate expert, you need to accelerate your ability to know what advanced users will be doing tomorrow... this is not about just listening to marketing hype or just finding out about new features that the SolidWorks sales guys are excited about, although you need to do that, too. Your first order of business is to find a way to accelerate the development of your expertise by studying and discussing SolidWorks with other users with current project in industry who share the intensity of your interest in SolidWorks. You need to be thinking about how they could be experimenting with ways to make SolidWorks and other tools even more useful, more powerful for product development.
In other words, if you really want to consider yourself a relevant expert, it goes beyond just understanding the software ... you need to understand how users will be practically putting Solidworks to work and testing its limits on their projects tomorrow... you need to immerse yourself in the SolidWorks community; find out where the traps, pitfalls and opportunities are ... you must work at becoming more networked; you must know how to use all of the tools of the Solidworks Customer Portal and forums and then find and join a SolidWorks Users Group and MAKE YOUR OWN CONTRIBUTION TO A RAPIDLY EVOLVING BODY OF KNOWLEDGE.
I have to learn solidworks quickly for my job. I have used autodesk inventor (different CAD software) before for a short period of time. So I have some experience. I am willing to put the time and effort in. I have access to it in my lab. So What is the best and quickest way to learn?.
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