Last Summer, we piloted a program on the 3DS Boston Campus called Teachers at Dassault Systèmes (TADS). We partnered with local Waltham High School to provide a 6-week summer internship for 2 teachers. Not only did they learn about Dassault Systèmes as an example of a global, innovative, technology company, but they took our Passion for Innovation program, Khufu Reborn, and created a 3-lesson engineering design challenge for their classrooms.

This program is part of our larger corporate citizenship commitment to improving Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education across North America. We have created a 3-minute film about the TADS program and have entered it in a film festival sponsored by the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship (BCCCC).

The TADS program has 3 main goals:

1. Educate Teachers – Provide teachers in our communities with first-hand experience about STEM careers at innovation driven companies, that they can then pass on to their students and encourage them pursue these types of careers and classwork
2. Educate Students – Enable teachers with 3DS solutions and passion for innovation programs that are not currently available for use in a classroom, but could potentially be very valuable for teachers to use to inspire young people to dream bigger and pursue STEM based futures.
3. Educate Communities РTo be a positive feature in the communities that we work by increasing awareness of Dassault Syst̬mes by members of the Waltham Public Schools community

Oh, and if you liked our video, cast your vote for the Dassault Systemes TADS video at BCCCC’s Film Festival for corporate citizenhip videos! Thank you! 

Amy Green works for SolidWorks Marketing, and is a member of 3DS Boston Campus’ Green Team and Citizenship Involvement Committee.

Today, we had the pleasure to welcome a new colleague in our 3DS Academy team … NAO! 

NAO is a programmable, 57-cm tall humanoid robot! Created by French company Aldebaran Robotics, NAO was introduced for the first time in 2006 (and we interviewed his maker Bruno Maissonier in 2010). It measures 56 centimeters, weighs 11 pounds and have a capacity of 25 degrees of freedom, allowing reproducing the majority of human movements (walking, holding an object, playing football, dancing…).

It’s also a walking computer on steroids: 2 CPU (one Intel ATOM 1.6 ghz), 2 HD 920p cameras 30 fps for vision, 4 microphones, Wi-Fi, 9 tactile sensors, inertial platform consisting of an accelerometer, two gyro-meters, sonar rangefinder, 8 pressure sensors…

Dassault Systèmes, through its partnership with Aldebaran Robotics, innovates by proposing a new software platform (3DEXPERIENCE platform) to develop new experiences with NAO.  It is a new step after NAO Tutorials for SolidWorks. As such, the 3DS academy team has modeled the robot using the 3DEXPERIENCE apps and is now programming its behavior with CATIA Systems. We will certainly keep you informed about every progress the team will make!

Watch this to find out more about NAO:

Also follow 3DSAcademy on: Facebook, Twitter, and our 3DS Academy website.

Talk to you soon!

Following up our introductory post on World-Changing Dreamers revealed by the IF WE Challenge, this is a first post in a series about our three lucky winners.

Let’s begin with the second runner-up, Andjelic Zoran. His IF WE Dream was: “IF WE have enough 3D printers, we could make custom made prosthetic limbs for all victims of landmines and renew their faith in science”. Andjelic talks about his dream with great passion:

I currently work as an industrial equipment designer in Italy and often stay after work to use your software, I am simply in love with it.  But I’m originating from Bosnia and Herzegovina and there are a lot of people injured by land mines in my country.

The main thing that bothers them with their prosthetics besides the limited functionality due to limited budget is the aesthetics. Usually they come in skin-color, that’s pretty creepy because it looks like a puppet part. Many of them are young, have psychological issues and have lost their faith in science, because of its involvement in weapon design. Now they can see athletes at the Olympic games with state-of-art prosthetics, yet they can’t have such prosthetics.

Since I have skills in surface design, my dream is to return in Bosnia and use my knowledge to help this people.  Modern technology makes possible to scan injured limbs and 3D print custom, more ergonomic prosthetic limbs. Such equipment is very expensive and I know it is impossible to help everyone at the moment but I want to start and raise money to fulfill my dream. In Bosnia my friends have some CNC machines able to produce some parts for those limbs. I will find my way through humanitarian organizations to get appropriate 3D scanners and 3D printers for custom made parts but we will certainly need software that is able to use scanned dates, transform them in STL file, support 3D printing and CNC machining.

I hope that we will be able to produce prosthetics that will be more functional, more comfortable and make some people happy again. I also hope that your company will give a contribution. So I send you my concept of prosthetic limb. I will add outside parts when we become able to produce them.

As a winner of the third prize, Andjelic was provided with a high performance laptop and a CATIA licence. Here is what he wrote us when he received the package:

I have received the package with laptop and I am very happy right now. [...] This will help me a lot to make my dreams come true.

We definitely hope so, Andjelic, and we’re glad to bring a humble contribution to your world-changing dream!