FreeCAD (and Free CAE) Users Conference 2023 Update

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Varnu01
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FreeCAD (and Free CAE) Users Conference 2023 Update

Post by Varnu01 »

Good Day fellow FreeCAD Users, Contributors and Creators

I hope you are all doing well.

My name is Varnu Govender, I am the assistant to Dr Lukas du Plessis (@Karolis on the forum) at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

The purpose of this message and thread is to update everyone on the proceedings of the first annual FreeCAD users conference set to take place in early 2023.

The first communications related to this are linked here.

The aim of this conference is to help new users familiarize themselves with open-source CAD and CAE packages and help introduce these packages in countries where commercial software is not accessible or affordable.

Since the announcement of this conference, we invited a large number of workbench creators and stakeholders in the FreeCAD space to present their work at the conference, we currently have around 14 or 15 creators interested in doing so. If anyone is interested in presenting their workbench/contributions, please send me a private message so I can collect your details.

We are in the process of developing a website that will serve as a 'virtual venue' where all information and sessions will be stored and streamlined during the course of the conference. The sessions hosted will be made available on YouTube after the conference has been concluded. The information presented will also be made available and posted on a special thread in the forums for further perusal.

The sessions itself will be short (around 15-20 minutes per session), the presenters will introduce and showcase the basics of their workbench, and then provide further training material and documentation. We understand that nobody is willing to sit in front of their computer for 2-3 hours. The aim is to keep the sessions short and informative while still keeping the viewer intrigued.

If you have any questions, feel free to make use of this thread or private message me. Alternatively, you are welcome to send me an email (govender.v@tuks.co.za)

I look forward to hear everyone's comments regarding this.

Regards
Varnu
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Jee-Bee
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Re: FreeCAD (and Free CAE) Users Conference 2023 Update

Post by Jee-Bee »

Nice to see some SA activity around here!
baie dankie!(sorry i don't know any of the other African languages ;))

If i have some spare time i try to watch it online!
Outsourced
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Re: FreeCAD (and Free CAE) Users Conference 2023 Update

Post by Outsourced »

1st world nations also have there cracks, where people of all walks of life fall thru! The inherent problem is that traditional CAD packages are embedded in the education system, once students are trained on those CAD packages - your limited to working for a company that uses the CAD you are familiar with, there is no way a young energetic mind - would be able to afford the absorbent price of commercial software, fresh out of school. And this ideology effectively wastes the creative spirit of a young engineering mind, Imagine the collective damage this has done to society. Its A lot! Every vaccine with the exception of mumps - takes on average 15 years to get to market, Covid 19 with Oxford universities methodology of parallelism achieved the vaccine to market in under a year.

I believe there is opportunity to establish a training course for facilitators,& globally there could be a push towards using FreeCAD, but we have to start small, firstly FreeCAD needs to accredit its trainers somehow? Perhaps pier to pier. Or an automated training program. I believe if this is achieved for the timing of version 1 FC1.0, FC will hit the ground running.

Community College would be an ideal place to begin the training, because at the end of the day being social is as important as the education itself. But in the case of another pandemic there's no reason why another automated system or pier to pier could be run for FC education accreditation as well as facilitator accreditation.

I may or may not be able to attend the webinar due to God dam health reasons, but I will follow this thread either way.
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Varnu01
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Re: FreeCAD (and Free CAE) Users Conference 2023 Update

Post by Varnu01 »

Jee-Bee wrote: Wed Jun 08, 2022 2:11 pm Nice to see some SA activity around here!
baie dankie!(sorry i don't know any of the other African languages ;))
Dis 'n groot plesier!!

I look forward to hearing your feedback.
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Varnu01
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Re: FreeCAD (and Free CAE) Users Conference 2023 Update

Post by Varnu01 »

Outsourced wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 4:08 am 1st world nations also have there cracks, where people of all walks of life fall thru! The inherent problem is that traditional CAD packages are embedded in the education system, once students are trained on those CAD packages - your limited to working for a company that uses the CAD you are familiar with, there is no way a young energetic mind - would be able to afford the absorbent price of commercial software, fresh out of school. And this ideology effectively wastes the creative spirit of a young engineering mind, Imagine the collective damage this has done to society. Its A lot!
As an Engineering Student, I can attest to this. Especially when you intend on starting a small business and you do not have the capital to afford commercial packages, open source is always the solution. If you have a good understanding of Python, it gives you the flexibility to create your own design tools.

Dr du Plessis as part of his mission intends on trying to alleviate these issues on our own shores. However, these issues are prevalent in 1st world countries too as you mentioned.

It is in our best hopes that we can ensure continuity for this conference. By doing so, we can build a strong relationship with creators, both experienced and new to the scene. This will hopefully build some credibility. But accredited courses/facilitators is definitely a good route to take, given the complexity and diversity of FreeCAD and other open source CAD/CAE packages.

I appreciate your feedback and I hope you are doing well.
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