Snapshot
2-Minute Tech Tips provide concise solutions to common technical problems, demonstrations of common design strategies, and recommendations for improving workflow efficiency in SOLIDWORKS. This course is updated with new lessons each month.
Who is this series for?
Beginner and intermediate users in need of quick tips to improve their design skills and/or solve common problems. Viewers should already have a foundational understanding of SOLIDWORKS to get the most out of the series.
How can you use it?
This series is commonly used for self-service troubleshooting purposes. Additional lessons include overviews of intermediate design strategies and productivity tools for continuous improvement of existing skill sets.
What makes it special?
2-Minute Tech Tips are generally under 3 minutes in length, offering quick solutions and demonstrations of efficient tool use and proper design strategy without requiring users to enroll in a full-length course. The included lessons are also searchable from the SolidProfessor home page, making this series an easy-access troubleshooting resource.
Acknowledging Shrinking Attention Spans
It’s common knowledge that attention spans have reduced dramatically with the advent of computers and smartphone technology. It’s also common knowledge that the attention span of a goldfish is just nine seconds – but unfortunately, common knowledge is often incorrect, as neither of the previous claims are based on scientific evidence.
The only thing more frustrating than dealing with a meandering video is wading through the endless fields of terrible search results and misinformation on the way there, and SOLIDWORKS is no exception. There are numerous ways to perform just about any task in SOLIDWORKS with varying degrees of effectiveness ranging from “best-practice” to “I can’t believe this works” with many shades of gray in between.
The result of searching for “SOLIDWORKS Assembly” on YouTube, advertisements included
The 2-Minute Tech Tips series is rooted in decades of SOLIDWORKS experience with each lesson being reviewed by a Certified SOLIDWORKS Expert, so you can be confident that the examples and strategies provided meet the best-practice standard and avoid misinformation. As an added bonus, each lesson is exceptionally short to get you an answer as quickly as possible. As you might expect, the pacing of these lessons is rather fast and may not be suitable for those who wish to follow along; however, each lesson ends with a recommended course to review for more information on the tools used.
Cutting to the Chase
Even if you don’t have the attention span of a goldfish (which may or may not be a good thing?), that doesn’t mean you have the time or patience to scrub through a 60 minute webinar or listen to someone tell you to like and subscribe to their YouTube channel. 2-Minute Tech Tips are specifically designed to provide an answer first and an explanation second whenever possible, allowing you to get the information you need and get right back to work.
Consider this example on disabling the selection filter in SOLIDWORKS. Selection filters have a variety of important use cases, especially in more advanced design scenarios. But the reality for newer users is that these filters can be activated unintentionally and actually prevent selections, causing a lot of frustration.
Selection Filters illustrating the solution-first, explanation-second format of 2-Minute Tech Tips
The solution to this problem is presented within the first 50 seconds of the video for those seeking a quick fix, while the remaining 90 seconds is used to explain how to use selection filters effectively and prevent this problem from occurring in the future. This model of “solution first, explanation second” is used throughout the series to serve those in a hurry along with those looking to learn a bit more.
For those who appreciate added context and have a bit more time on their hands, our Ask SolidProfessor series offer a longer-format alternative to 2-Minute Tech Tips in which we explore larger case studies and combinations of SOLIDWORKS tools while answering more complex questions from the SolidProfessor community.
Addressing “Unknown Unknowns”
The SolidProfessor team is built on a foundation of classroom experience, having instructed and developed educational materials for SOLIDWORKS users of all experience levels. Over the years we’ve become very skilled at anticipating questions, particularly from newer users, that remain unanswered by the standard learning curriculum made available by SOLIDWORKS. These questions represent the primary subject matter of the 2-Minute Tech Tip series.
Drawing again from classroom experience, it’s common for students to describe a design scenario or problem they’re working on and ask for advice to solve it. In many cases, users know what they need to do, but don’t necessarily know the names of the tools involved. In other words, they don’t know what they need to look for and learn to solve their problem.
When instructed to measure the internal volume of a hollow part, for example, an experienced user will immediately begin considering Intersect, Combine, and other similar tools. On the other hand, newer users may not even know these tools exist, let alone their names in order to search for them. They only know what they need to accomplish.
A 2-Minute Tech Tip demonstrating the process and tools required to measure internal volume
The 2-Minute Tech Tips series recognizes this phenomenon, often adapting design objectives and common workflows as lesson subjects and titles. As another example, our lesson on creating knurled surfaces uses helical curves, pierce relations, swept cuts, and circular patterns, all of which would otherwise be learned independently throughout multiple courses. Here they’re combined and related to a single, recognizable design task, improving the discoverability of tools for new users and providing context to how these tools are used in conjunction with one another. Additionally, the end of each lesson recommends related full-length courses to explore for more in-depth information on the tools involved.
Quick Access Troubleshooting
Another primary source of subject matter for 2-Minute Tech Tips comes directly from technical support channels, addressing the top-ranking questions asked by SOLIDWORKS users. Some of these questions are answered in the standard SOLIDWORKS curriculum, and many are addressed within SolidProfessor courses, but they are easily forgotten and are often contained within broader topics.
As an example, configurations in SOLIDWORKS are discussed throughout multiple lessons across multiple courses, each covering different sets of options and use cases depending on the topic at hand. Generally, this is a good thing, as this approach keeps the focus on the tools/options most relevant to the subjects being discussed. Configurations are used differently in parts, assemblies, drawings, and so on, so this makes sense.
As a result, however, finding information on specific individual tools/options can sometimes be difficult. How to display units as fractions is one of the most-asked technical support questions of all time and has been covered by multiple introductory SOLIDWORKS courses for years. However, since this information is contained within lessons covering a variety of system options and document properties, finding it without digging through multiple courses used to be rather difficult.
A quick solution for displaying decimals as fractions, created in response to technical support demand
Our 2-Minute Tech Tip on this subject demonstrates the process, provides additional context, and points to relevant courses to learn more in just two minutes, and perhaps even more importantly, it’s easily discovered using the search function available on the SolidProfessor home page.
“I Wish I Had Known That Earlier!”
Nothing brings me more joy as an educator than shocking a veteran user with a simple tip or trick to make life easier, and these “pro tips” or “life hacks” can be a valuable resource even to established experts. Our final category of subjects for 2-Minute Tech Tips documents these productivity tools collected through decades of experience, offering greater design efficiency and a better SOLIDWORKS experience.
A common scenario nearly every SOLIDWORKS user has faced is the pain and existential dread of accidentally clicking in white space and clearing all selections after preselecting dozens or even hundreds of edges and faces. If only there were an easy way to restore lost selections.
Previous Selection is a powerful tool that many experienced users are unaware of
I was astounded to discover (years into my SOLIDWORKS career, unfortunately) that there is in fact a way to do this in just two clicks with a tool named Previous Selection. Unfortunately, I managed to miss this tool in my SOLIDWORKS Essentials course 12 years ago, and it didn’t come up again for another several years. These relatively simple tips and tricks can have a big impact on your experience with SOLIDWORKS, but they’re easy to miss even for the most accomplished users. Our 2-Minute Tech Tips series aims to document these tools of the trade and make them accessible to users of all skill levels.
Continuous CAD Education with 2-Minute Tech Tips
Unlike our standard full-length courses, which are revised as needed on varying yearly cycles as software updates are released, the 2-Minute Tech Tip series is frequently updated with new lessons (typically twice per month). This enables novice and expert users alike to regularly discover helpful productivity tools, learn new design approaches, and find solutions to technical problems.
Our Ask SolidProfessor and What’s New in SOLIDWORKS series follow a similar release schedule with frequent updates, so be sure to check back often to discover new possibilities and get the most out of SOLIDWORKS with 2-Minute Tech Tips.
