Welcome back to the User Forum modeling challenge series!

We continue the journey & this time, we have developed a challenge based upon feedback received from users.

MISSION Model for Me #3: The Folding Camp Chair 

On the surface, it’s just some tubes & a piece of fabric. To a talented SOLIDWORKS pro (you 🫵), it’s a welded frame, a scissor linkage & a load path hiding in plain sight. Get one mate wrong & your chair won’t fold. Get one weldment wrong & your cut list will be a work of fiction.

🛠️ Challenge Overview

• Model a standard folding camp chair in SOLIDWORKS as a fully functional assembly.
• The frame must be built with the Weldments tools. No lofting a “tube-ish blob” & calling it a day.
• The chair must actually fold & unfold using real mates. If it only works because you dragged a part into place, we’ll know.

🗝️Key Design Features to Capture

1. The Welded Frame: Structural members with proper profiles, mitered corners, end caps & trimmed joints. Bonus points for a clean cut list with correct lengths & properties
2. The Scissor Mechanism: Pivot points, crossing members & slots that let the chair collapse. Watch for over-defined mates, which will fight you!
3. The Seat & Back: Fabric in tension, not just a flat surface. How you model it (flat pattern, flex or simplified) is part of the challenge
4. The Packaging Envelope: Folded, the chair must fit inside a 600 × 150 × 150 mm carry bag. Check your interference
5. The Hardware: Rivets, bolts, pivots & feet. Little parts, big impact on whether the thing moves

🪜The Tiers

Choose your own adventure:

• 🥉Bronze, “Take a Seat”: Deployed chair only. Weldment frame & cut list
• 🥈Silver, “Fold It”: Everything in Bronze, plus a working fold using proper mates & a motion study
• 🥇Gold, “Pack It & Prove It”: Everything in Silver, plus the packaging envelope check & a 120 kg static load case in SOLIDWORKS Simulation

📋The Guidelines

1. Model it: Use the photos as your reference, or bring your own favorite chair.
2. Show the Logic: Post your final model & your Feature Manager tree. We’re looking for clean design intent, not a “geometric nightmare.”
3. Show the Motion: Silver & Gold entries must include a screenshot or short clip of the fold.
4. The Signal: Tell us the one feature that was surprisingly difficult to get right.
5. Software: Any version of SOLIDWORKS.
6. Spoiler Tags: If you share step-by-step hints in the comments, please use spoiler formatting so others can work through it themselves.

What was your biggest hurdle: the weldment profiles, the scissor mates, or getting the chair to fold without locking up? Did you use a layout sketch to drive the whole frame, or build it member by member?

Whaddya think: hard? Or just another “...hold-my-beer” easy-peasy challenge? 

Those daring Bronze, Silver or Gold - we want to see your ideas & creations! Share your work below! 👇

<strong>Notice</strong>: By participating in this challenge, you acknowledge that folding chairs are known to pinch fingers, collapse unexpectedly & ruin otherwise pleasant picnics. SOLIDWORKS is not liable for any user- generated pinching, tipping or dramatic backward falls. If you can't handle the reference hardware, maybe stick to modeling something safer... like a beanbag.