The recently concluded 3DEXPERIENCE® World 2020 brought together a community of designers, engineers, entrepreneurs and business leaders to share their experiences with innovative technology powered by the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform and SOLIDWORKS. Discussions centered around how Dassault Systemes and its partners are accelerating this Industry Renaissance: the new reality of global transformation of how we invent, design, produce, and power experiences. Around 6000 attendees were present at the venue across three days, from 9-12 February at Music City Center at Nashville, TN in the US.
The 3DEXPERIENCE Lab, being the global startup accelerator and open innovation lab of Dassault Systemes, played a vital role in bringing several innovations to the mega event. These exhibits helped kickstart a number of industry-transforming conversations, to say the least. The 3DEXPERIENCE Lab booth within the Playground featured 6 kiosks, each pertaining to a full fledged project that's underway at the Lab. In addition to the booth, we brought to the 'World' amazing projects like Magic Wheelchair and Virtual Museum of Innovations, and innovation showcases in the form of 3DEXPERIENCE Stories 360 and a Mobile Fab Lab.
Final Countdown to the 'World'
Packing everything was daunting but fun and it started weeks ago, in the end of January.
Lab team was careful in making sure nothing broke and we used our experience from last year and optimized this crucial part of the preparation.
We took all the essentials for the event and even included extra packing material and box cutters. Packing all the stuff snuggly enough to avoid breaking any exhibit took @RG and me a couple of days to pack but it was worth it.
After saying a quick 'bye' to our in-house Furhat Robot in the Lab, the team left for Nashville.
Lab's presence in the 'World'
The build up to the 'World' began several months as we worked closely with the Events team and George P Johnson Agency to detail it all out on paper rather diligently. Thanks to @VB and @BK for keeping everything on track.
As we firmed up the 3DEXPERIENCE Lab Zone in terms of its design and location within DS Booth in the Playground section of the venue, we assessed over 14 potential candidates for the 6 kiosks we had in the zone. After careful deliberation, we brought the following 6 exhibits (one exhibit per booth)
- Closing the Gap from Bits to Atoms - Celebrating DS partnership with MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, we brought Jake Read, PhD Scholar from Dr. Neil Gershenfeld's group, who works closely with @SL, R&D Director at SOLIDWORKS, around developing the future of digital fabrication by enabling machines to talk to each other through MODS, which simply put, is a friendly web interface that allows users to connect devices and execute computations and even build modular machines that do a variety of tasks.
- Bringing Ancient Giza to Life - We have a great working relationship with Prof. Peter Manuelian, Barbara Bell Professor of Egyptology at Harvard University and Director of Semitic Museum at Harvard. Over the summer of 2019, we invited his Teaching Assistant, Huopu Zhang, to learn xDesign and xShape in our Boston Lab and mentor Harvard students during the Fall semester. The kiosk at the 'World' showed parts of the work done by Huopu done in the Lab where we started with xShape and xDesign and fabricated prototypes of Giza tombs.
- Collaborating for Passion - OpenR2 is a collaborative project accelerated by the 3DEXPERIENCE Lab that brings together creative makers passionate about Star Wars R2D2 o collaborate and customize, repair, and refurbish life sized Star Wars R2-D2 figures, prop replicas, and monuments. Robert Jackson, CEO and Co-founder, had original blueprints of the R2D2 robot from 1970s that he brought to the Lab booth.
- Empowering Makers across the World - Every year, Dassault Systemes SOLIDWORKS helps MIT in creation of a new Digital Fabrication Lab (Fab Lab) in a remote corner of the world. It started with Rwanda in year 2017, then came Bhutan and last year, I was with Dr. Gershenfeld and his team in the southernmost city of the world, Puerto Williams where we opened a Lab to help local community of makers. This kiosk in the Lab booth was about bringing objects from these three Labs in one place and also featured cool videos from the Labs. The idea was to showcase how DS is empowering makers from across the world.
- How to Fabricate Almost Anything - DS SOLIDWORKS supports Fab Academy and Fabricademy, programs run by MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms and The Fab Foundation by 1. giving scholarships to students, and 2. hosting both programs in our Boston Lab. This kiosk featured a few projects that were done in our lab.
- Epic Costumes for Children in Wheelchairs - Magic Wheelchair is a non-profit organization that connects kiddos in wheelchairs to volunteers who want to fabricate epic costumes for these kiddos at no cost to parents. Boston Lab has been involved in two builds for two different kiddos, Jonah and Ben. The project is part of the 3DEXPERIENCE Lab, which means that we will offer platform and mentoring to any team of volunteers who want to work on the build.
Museum of Innovation After the world-wide launch of The Museum of Innovation at RENDEZVOUS 2019 at Atelier des Lumières digital art center in Paris on Dec 3 last year, we were waiting to bring it to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. And so we did, at the 'World' in Nashville, thanks to @DN @HF @RK @BH
The “Museum of Innovation” is a scientific & technological virtual reality experience to showcase innovations from around the world that are positively impacting society. From solar autonomous drones to sustainable energy production, from 3D-printed organs to virtual surgery, this new 3D experience offers an immersive way for anyone to discover disruptive projects addressing some of the world’s major challenges in health, well-being, energy, farming, mobility… contributing to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Each project leverages collective intelligence, as well as design, simulation & data sciences applications powered by the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, to accelerate their development and deployment. As the virtual twin models comes directly from the 3D digital mock ups engineered by the teams, that brings a real life-like and scientific experience, the “at scale” immersion gives the real sensations. This 3DExperience is available on the cloud, it is scalable and quickly deployable, thus the access will be extended to other countries where 3DS and its partners are located, and to science museums to share the experience with the public.
Museum visitors can explore innovations with all of their senses, from hands-on, virtual reality interactions with products to discussions with the people behind the innovation. They can deepen their learning by getting a glimpse into the tools and processes used to develop each project: design, simulation, additive manufacturing, virtual twins and more…all thanks to cloud computing.
By allowing visitors to explore both the innovative products and the processes behind making the products real, it becomes clear to people how digital twins help make – and improve – real products. The experiences are interactive and real-time, not pre-defined but guided by the participants’ own curiosity. They are created with 3DEXCITE, and leverage partnerships with HP for the hardware and HTC VIVE for the VR headsets.
Magic Wheelchair Reveals
There were two costume reveals at the 'World' thanks to tireless efforts of two teams brought together by the use of 3DEXPERIENCE Platform for planning the builds under the able and seasoned mentorship of @CL @AC @SL from SOLDIWORKS team. Christian Bagg and Will Gill from Bowhead Corporation, Luke Daley and Karen Daley from JJ Industries, Jonny Harrison from Kessel Run Creations, and prop builder and SOLIDWORKS power user Kirby Downey worked on a Star Wars themed build for a great kiddo named Jacob. And a lovely kiddo named Trinity received a Beauty and the Beast themed costume built by Matt Long from Mad Scientist Workshop and Sean Fields from Project 842.
3DEXPERIENCE STORIES 360
“The Story is the Experience”
We did something really interesting this year. We challenged ourselves to experiment with a new format for showcasing and sharing innovative stories from the Lab with the attendees of the 'World'. For this, we worked with a company called IGLOO that produces Shared VR Experiences. Thanks to the hard work by @GG we were able to get the right content and experience worked out within the strict deadline that we worked against.
Simply put, we brought a 5m cylinder to the 'World' that showcased Lab stories worth spreading :) Read on:
3DEXPERIENCE Lab invites you to immerse yourself in stories of disruptive innovations accelerated by the Lab globally. Soar with an autonomous solar drone, stand next to a modular vehicle, visit an operating room and observe surgeons train with 3D printed organs, enter the creative mind of Leonardo da Vinci, and more. The Lab is the global startup acceleration and open innovation program of Dassault Systèmes that nurtures early stage projects and helps expand their global footprint.
Result - There were hundreds of attendees who went into the exhibit and came out praising the exhibit and the stories we had brought with us. Thanks to @SZ who managed the exhibit and answered all questions about the Lab as they popped up.
Mobile Fab Lab
For second year in a row, we brought the Mobile Fab Lab to the mega event to showcase the power of 'Collaborative Making' in a unique format and the role played by Dassault Systemes SOLIDWORKS in driving the culture of Fab Labs across the globe
A Mobile Fab Lab is a computer-controlled design and machining set up housed in a trailer. Brent Richardson oversees Fab Lab Houston’s Mobile Fab Lab located at BakerRipley community center on the north side of Houston. Attendees could explore the fab lab from inside and also get an opportunity to participate in a collaborative project on the theme of 'How to Make (Almost) Anything. It was definitely one of the attraction of the playground and the Lab also helped Magic Wheelchair team in their last minute fixes.
I would love to thank @FV @SJ and @MP for their help in making this possible for the Lab once again. 'World' was a huge success and so was Lab's presence in Nashville. Also, special thanks to our Lab Mentor of the Year 2019 @TM for all his help on ground during some critical phases of the event.
