Suchit Jain, Vice President of Strategy and Community for 3DEXPERIENCE Works, welcomed today’s first customer, Ian Roy, the Founding Head of the Brandeis University’s MakerLab and an adjunct professor at the Brandeis International Business School, as well as the pioneer behind Brandeis’s inaugural Engineering course.

After suffering a personal tragedy, Ian set off on a mission to “use design to positively impact our community. His focus at Brandeis has been on ‘Design to Repair the World.”

“Whether it’s through groundbreaking faculty research or student-led startups or collaborations with social organizations, we strive to create designs that address real societal issues, turning personal grief into a catalyst for communal healing and growth.”

Up next was Brent Bushnell, CEO and Roustabout of Two Bit Circus. Brent is at the forefront of reimagining entertainment, masterfully blending immersive technology with social interaction to create unparalleled experiential fun.

Both cofounders of Two Bit Circus are engineers so the “circus” emerged from their experiments playing with lasers, fire, and robots. Now every day the team is busy designing new arcade cabinets, building escape room and new attractions—with SOLIDWORKS, of course.

One of the projects Brent is most excited about it the new open-source DIY Arcade, which you can see here in the Playground. Two Bit Circus is providing, for free, all the files necessary for a student to cut and build their own arcade cabinet. They can make whatever changes they want to the design, cut it out, assemble it, download the open-source operating system and launch open-source games.

“It’s a full stack STEM/STEAM learning experience with lots of opportunities to customize, but that’s not all. Add a credit card reader, and it’s now an entrepreneurial activity too. Students can place their new arcade in a laundromat or restaurant and now it’s making money for them.”

Next Suchit provided an update on a groundbreaking initiative we shared with you all last year, Fab-In-a-Box. This project, a collaborative effort with the Fab Foundation and MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, continues to push the boundaries of digital fabrication and education.

This low-cost, easy-to-use fab lab starter kit includes a laser cutter, vinyl cutter, and 3D printer—all on a custom, mobile cart. Best of all: it comes with xDesign browser-based parametric design software and the curriculum is provided! The kit teaches educators how to use it with their students. Stop by Fab Foundation’s booth to see the cart; build a balsa-wood glider; and learn more about this project.

In the future, we’ll see learners empowered to fabricate not just projects, but the machines that make them. Check out an example at the Playground: a selfie-machine built from a kit of parts optimized by researchers at MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms.

“Projects and collaborations like these make digital fabrication more accessible to all. We’re excited to teach STEM skills vital to the 21st-century workforce, and empower young learners to turn their ideas into reality.”

Next up was two members of our User Advocacy team, Dan Wagner and Matthew Clegg, to announce the SWUGN award winners. This year’s winner of the Michelle Pillers Community Award was Adam Ebernickel. The winner of the Wayne Tiffany User Group Leader of the Year aware went to Prasad Adiga. A huge congratulations to Eric Beatty, SOLIDWORKS Champion of the Year. Congratulations to all the winners.

Mike Puckett, SOLIDWORKS Certification Director, and Dr. Robert Coker from NeuroLutions. The company has created the IpsiHand System, a groundbreaking technology using SOLIDWORKS, to help stroke survivors. Mike shared his own personal journey recovering from a stroke he had six months ago.

There are over 450K people in the U.S. who can’t use a hand, as a result of a stroke. The IpsiHand uses your healthy brain activity when thinking about movement to retrain a new part of our brain to control your disabled arm.

Jesse Sprague brought out today’s keynote speaker, Paddy Lowe, who has had a 32-year career with 12 championship winning teams and 10 Racecar of the Year Awards. He shared how he got his start in Formula One and how he’s tackled many of the design challenges over multi-decade career.

As a top engineer at Formula One, Paddy has spent decades measuring in milliseconds how to make Formula One cars go faster, but today his tagline is “600 million years in three minutes” as he focuses on discovering a way to put use of fossil fuels in the rear view.

His newest company, Zero Petroleum, a pioneer of synthetic fuels, will revolutionize how we think of internal combustion engines, and even better, make synthetic fuel sustainable.

This was an amazing discussion and one that, if you missed it, you should watch on-demand.

SOLIDWORKS CEO Gian Paulo Bassi closed the day’s General Session by thanking the attendees for attending and welcoming everyone to join us for 3DEXPERIENCE World 2025 in Houston, February 23-26.

SOLIDWORKS

Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp. offers complete 3D software tools that let you create, simulate, publish, and manage your data. SolidWorks products are easy to learn and use, and work together to help you design products better, faster, and more cost-effectively. The SolidWorks focus on ease-of-use allows more engineers, designers and other technology professionals than ever before to take advantage of 3D in bringing their designs to life.