I decided to challenge myself to Dassault Systèmes's 21 years of Model Mania by completing the designs from one year (2000-2020) in a day. I recorded the time it took to complete each model as well as the modifications provided in each year's "Phase 2" design. I am hoping to finish this challenge while reinforcing my current CAD skill as well as gaining new ones.
Model Mania can be found at: https://blogs.solidworks.com/tech/2020/03/20-years-of-model-mania.html
This page is for the 2010-2020 models. There is a separate page for the 2000-2009 models.
The 2010 model is a swing arm which was relatively simple to build. Using the top and side profiles, this model can be made with just 1 extrusion and 1 extruded cut with fillets. Phase 2 just required editing the top profile
The 2011 model is a pipe connector. Phase 1 required building the features in a specific order. Creating the shell before fillets for example. I am continuing to minimize my number of features/sketches as well as dimensions in the sketches by relying more on constraints when possible. Overall, Phase 1 took 30 minutes. Phase 2 changes mostly consisted of an additional cut and extrusion. There was some rebuilding of features after rolling back to the beginning but the whole process only took 20 minutes.
The 2012 model is a lever. Looks a lot like a parking/emergency brake in a car. Phase 1 was simple to make with just a top and side profile. This took about 20 minutes to to complete. Phase 2 changed the profiles and added additional bumps that required a sketch and extrusion to create. Overall, Phase 2 took 15 minutes.
The 2013 model took about 30 minutes for Phase 1 and 20 minutes for Phase 2. I was able to build both of these parts with a single sketch which was reused to make different extrusions with offsets. Using offset extrusions is something I had not utilized often before starting this challenge. It has become immensely useful to me and helps to minimize the number of sketches I have to make.
The 2014 model took 20 minutes for Phase 1 and about 10 minutes for Phase 2. The only major change was the outer radius of the part which took seconds to apply. After that, the fillets and extrusions had to be adjusted to line up to the intended finished drawing.
The 2015 model Phase 1 was pretty quick and simple. Overall, it took 20 minutes to build. The base and upper circular parts were build off one sketch as two extrusions. Then, the angle was projected for the connecting material between the two. After making the last extrusions, I had to manually make each fillet as a separate feature as the circular pattern method was not working for some reason. Phase 2 took 20 minutes and was made just by editing the sketches and fixing any errors due to now-missing faces.
The 2016 model was made with just a revolve, two extruded cuts a hole wizard command, and fillets. Phase 1 took 15 minutes and didn't present too much of a challenge. Phase 2 made the extruded cuts into revolved cuts which took about 10 minutes to change.
The 2017 model was the first one for a while where the method I decided was best was to make a sketch for each feature. A sketch was made for the overall body as well as one for the cut in the upper surface and one for the lower which could be patterned for Phase 1 and Phase 2. This extra work made Phase 1 take about 40 minutes while Phase 2 took just 5 as the changes were to just edit the patterned cuts.
The 2018 model is very reminiscence of a horseshoe. Phase 1 took about 30 minutes to create. The main horseshoe shape was made with an extrusion and extruded cut in perpendicular planes (front and right, respectively). Next the top circular profile and hole were made with extrusions from the top plane. Phase 2 moved one of the curves in the main body as well as integrating a shell into the same body. These changes took about 20 minutes including tweaking the circle at the top to go through the now longer body.
For the 2019 model, Phase 1 was relatively simple, taking just 30 minutes. When making the changes for Phase 2, the angle on the inside faces of the two tall sides presented a challenge. I had to delete a few of the cut features and rebuild them with different methods to achieve the angle. This ended up making Phase 2 take 45 minutes to finish.
The 2020 model, finished in gold, gave some very interesting challenges. One of these was placing the counterbored holes. Placing them normally on the "arms" would result in the holes being perpendicular to the angled surface instead of normal to the top plane as intended. Phase 1 took about 30 minutes while Phase 2 needed some remade features like the 2019 model. This ended up taking about 25 minutes for the modifications.
