Well, wouldn’t you know it. The temperatures have dropped 20 degrees in the northern hemisphere, so that can only mean one thing, football season, less daylight, winter is coming, a new release of SOLIDWORKS is here. It’s SOLIDWORKS 2016 launch week and this year Dassualt is adding something to the mix.

When it comes to NFL commercials, one only needs to be pointed to a long-running list of legendary Super Bowl ads to be reminded of how much money is spent on campaigns. To help kick off the new season, Honda has paid $5 million USD to air a total of 8 minutes of their new ad during tonight’s Monday Night Football game – and it’s surely one of the best ads in memory for those who appreciate engineering and manufacturing. The ad, titled “Paper”, was constructed from thousands of hand-sketched paper illustrations that were then used to create a stop-motion animation. Over a series of segments, the ad tells the…

Despite being the best building set around, LEGO brick creations are limited to one’s own imagination and rarely ever manifest into full-scale products – assuming one’s job doesn’t involve designing for Legoland. Although it’s certainly a few decades late for the majority of us who dreamt up spaceships of all shapes and sizes, a new building kit wants to take everything that’s great about LEGO – and other building kits – and let today’s inventive kids design their own full-scale rides. Over five years in the making from a pair of Dutch designers, Infento is the world’s first building set that allows kids (from toddler to teenager) to design and…

Few movies have been burned into the brains of today’s corporate work force as well as Office Space – the 1999 Mike Judge film that tells the story of corporate work life. The film, which helped lay the foundation for Judge’s more recent Silicon Valley show that follows a similar premise, has many memorable scenes – although few may be as memorable as the infamous “Printer Scene”. Set to a soundtrack of “Still” from the Geto Boys, the scene holds nothing back when it comes to the frustrations of dealing with crappy technology – such as mid-1990s printers. But while old off-white HP printers are one thing, what would a…

Don your favorite bath robe, cream that coffee and get comfortable with this weekend’s SolidSmack Weekend Reader. This week we saw everything from a juicy update to the popular Simplify3D 3D printing software, the new Etsy Manufacturing platform that the company hopes will connect small manufacturers with craftsmen, a hilarious parody of the all-too-popular ‘Maker Videos’ and more… So lay back, relax and take a load off while reading the top ten stories on SolidSmack this past week. Oh and uh…don’t forget to shed some much-needed sunlight on your face, too.

“What a large box of meats!” said I, hiding the pan of heated oil behind the swollen belly of a grossly oversized Patagonian Cavy. They looked at me puzzled, shimmying to the side, their feet stirring the dust, and quickly grabbing the buried cable to shield themselves with pulsating power of these links. Joel Rae – A dose of the surreal this week, with paintings that capture the oddity of motion with characters in precarious situations. Mario Myths – Do you think you know what Mario uses to break the bricks? That and other myths debunked by the creator, Mr. Miyamoto. USSR Architecture – Architectural prints are a weakness of…