UC San Diego Extension Offers New Class in Reverse Engineering Using Solidworks

In today’s world, technology advances almost daily, which is why it’s important for engineers to further their skill-set on a regular basis. To address the need for additional training, UC San Diego Extension offers a new reverse engineering course as part of the redesigned Mechanical Analysis and Design Certificate.

The “Introduction to Reverse Engineering with Solidworks” course offers practical, hands-on learning and instruction using Solidworks and reverse engineering programs to reverse engineer and bridge the physical to digital world through 3D scanning. Students will have access to 3D scanners, ReverseEngineering.com software add-in tools and have the opportunity to reverse engineer real parts. In addition, guest speakers will discuss Geometric Dimensioning & Tolerancing (GD&T) and their personal application stories.

“Reverse engineering is a mainstream skill for today’s economy where everyone wants to go to market faster, modifying existing molds, models or parts,” said Braxton Carter, president of HighRES, Inc. and instructor for the course. “The methods taught in ‘Introduction to Reverse Engineering with Solidworks’ will empower the student with a set of skills employers are looking for today.”

Reverse engineering an existing part allows students to load that part directly into CAD and analyze, create a new part, re-engineer, 3D print, or inspect and measure it. The methodology of reverse engineering physical parts has proven to be an extremely powerful tool and has been used to analyze football helmets, theme park rides, race cars, movie special effects, the human heart and much more.

Those who can benefit from enrolling in this course include:

• Product design professionals
• Government employees supporting MRO such as naval ship repair and aircraft maintenance
• Medical device designers
• Students who want to learn Solidworks modeling techniques associated with the scanning or physical parts in a 3D CAD software solution

“UC San Diego Extension certificates are always oriented toward working professionals and offer engineers the ability to deepen their practical skills in a certain area,” said Svetislavic Maric, director of engineering and IT programs at UC San Diego Extension. “In that sense, a course in reverse engineering is a crucial addition to Extension’s Mechanical Analysis and Design Certificate since it gives students the opportunity to learn new rapid prototyping methods.”

The course starts January 22, from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. and runs until March 19. For more information and to register, visit extension.ucsd.edu/courses-and-programs/introduction-to-reverse-engineering-with-solidworks.