Hello everyone, welcome back to Motion Monday!....Monday?

Wait, check your calendars. It’s definitely not Monday. I know, I know—my concept of time is clearly as stable as an under-constrained assembly. But hey, in the world of CAD, we call this "late-stage design iteration," right?

Since I’ve already got you here, let’s just lean into the chaos. Before we sprint toward the next actual Monday, let's take a quick pit stop to revisit the basics. Because let's be honest: if we don't understand how motion works in SOLIDWORKS, we’re just watching parts vibrate aggressively until the whole thing crashes.

So, what exactly is motion, and how does it work in SOLIDWORKS?

In simple terms, motion is the change in position or orientation of a component with respect to time. When we build assemblies in SOLIDWORKS, components are not just static models — they rotate, slide, collide, and interact with each other just like real mechanical systems.

Every component in 3D space initially has six degrees of freedom (DOF): three translations (X, Y, Z) and three rotations about those axes. When we apply mates in an assembly, we restrict certain degrees of freedom to create controlled and realistic movement between parts.

To study this movement, SOLIDWORKS provides Motion Studies, mainly in three levels:

• Animation – Used for visual demonstrations of movement where components follow the constraints defined by joints (mates), without considering physical forces or interactions.
• Basic Motion – Introduces simple physics such as gravity and collision detection (Contact).
• Motion Analysis – Uses a physics-based solver to simulate real interactions like forces, contacts, friction, and impacts.

In my previous post, I shared a carrom striker hitting a cluster of coins as an example of motion analysis. That simulation shows how contact and collision between bodies can be analyzed. When the striker hits the coins, the software calculates how the coins move, collide with each other, and spread across the board based on physics.

Before Striking	After Striking

It’s a simple everyday example, but it clearly shows how motion simulation helps us understand how parts interact in real systems.

Thank you for reading, I promise to work on my internal clock, but until then, I’m here to make sure your assemblies behave a little better than my posting schedule does. See you next Monday!!
Edu  MotionMonday