solidThinking 2011 Design Competition

2011 solidThinking Design Competition Winner

Congratulations to Nicholas Williams of Melbourne, Australia, for his winning entry in the solidThinking 2011 Design Competition. Some 500 college and university students from across the globe registered for the competition, which sought the best design concepts created completely using solidThinking 8.5 or solidThinking 8.5 Inspired^TM.

Nick is studying aerospace engineering at Monash University in Melbourne, and for the competition he designed a haptic watch that feeds tactile signals to the wearer. His sleek and handsome watch design earned Nick US$5,000 in cash and a solidThinking 8.5 Inspired commercial license. The design competition was meant to provide young designers the opportunity to express their creativity while learning solidThinking’s 3D software and gaining exposure for their talents.

In his response to the evaluation of his design, Nick observed, “I feel there is too often a rift between engineers—who often forget they are working in a world that is more than just math and theory but one of human interaction—and designers, who need to keep in mind that their ideas actually need to be physically possible to implement before they can evolve beyond a concept.”

Nick’s haptic watch, called Insight, is designed to work with the user as much as possible and, he notes, “designed such that it could be, and hopefully one day will be, manufactured with ease.”

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