Interview with Anna Wood – SolidMuse

Anna Wood is a name you recognize if you go to any of the SolidWorks forums. She is a fountain of great advice with a can-do spirit. Besides answering the tough questions for users out there, Anna is also a bit of a computer hardware wiz, and the keeper of the benchmark scores for a few informal benchmark parts meant to gauge one system against another. I’ve had the pleasure of touring Anna’s workplace, Auer Precision, in Phoenix, and it is an inspiring place to work all the way around. Anna has a diverse background, and interests befitting someone in the engineering and mechanical design field.

Anna also has a blog, and runs the Phoenix SolidWorks user group. The bad picture to the left is one that was taken at Mardis Gras World when the SolidWorks World off-site event was held there a couple of years ago. Here she was part of the original “blog squad” picture in the first year of organized SolidWorks blogs.

With this interview, I hope you enjoy getting to know a little bit about Anna behind the scenes, and what makes her tick. Power users and users with influence have interesting things to say.

M: Anna, tell us a little bit about yourself outside of work.

A: Outside of work I am a geek.  I spend way to much time hacking on a computer, surfing the internet and reading online.  I am a bit of a SolidWorks junky and spend a lot of time on the forums, reading blogs, etc.  Eng-Tips.com, and forum.solidworks.com are my favorite forums.  I spend some time everyday reading on SolidWorks and the CAD/Computer industry to stay current in tools and techniques.  I have worked at my present job for ten years and it would be real easy to get comfortable and not improve my skills or increase my knowledge in my craft.  Having made a major career shift ten years ago, I understand the importance of keeping one’s skills current.

M: I understand that you are involved in aerobatic plane work, can you mention what your involvement is?

A: Yes, aviation is another passion.  Aerobatic airplanes, homebuilts, classic steel tube and fabric general aviation aircraft.  I got the bug from my Dad, who was a general aviation pilot and flight instructor.  We always had model airplanes or a full scale aircraft restoration going on around the house.  Some of my best memories are hanging out at Romeo and the old McKinley Airport in Michgan.  After I earned my pilot’s license I took an aerobatic airplane ride and got hooked on competition aerobatics.

That is how I met my fiance, Len, at a local International Aerobatic Club contest in Michigan.  He is an RC model pilot, full scale aerobatic pilot, A&P mechanic and aircraft builder.  Our house looks like a computer store/hobby shop with a full scale aviation department thrown in.  Len is the real builder in the family amd the two of us share fun in our aviation projects.  Len is currently working, in SolidWorks, on a 1930’s vintage replica race plane that a friend of ours is interested in building once he finishes his current airplane project.  You can see some of the projects we consider fun on our website at www.acrodesigns.com

M: I understand you come from an automotive background. What kinds of work did you do in Detroit? Do you miss it at all?

A: I cut my mechanical design teeth in the automotive industry.  Again my influence was my Dad who was a senior designer/supervisor/manager at General Motors in product design.  I followed in his foot steps in the industry, starting out in high school learning drafting.  Got my first industry job as a manual drafting detailer for a company that designed the welding equipment for the body shops welding the Chrysler K cars.  From there I spent twenty years, most of it at General Motors, working my way up the ranks to be a senior designer, using CAD, designing the interior and exterior vehicle structures for the GM Truck Group.

Do I miss it…. Yes and No.  It was the absolute best training I could recieve.  Ten years of board experience before moving to CAD was invaluable.  I learned surface design and mechanical/sheet metal design from some of the best people in the business.  The skills I learned in PDM/PLM and engineering/design processes, before computers, are hard to get today.  I use everything I learned over those twenty years everyday at Auer.  Some of the classes I took are not even taught today and the art of pure design/drafting/descriptive geometry skills are just about lost today.

I am very glad Len and I had the opportunity to move to Arizona when we did.  It was a huge leap for me.  Len got a GM transfer, I had to start my career over in a different discipline in the design field.  My training and skills I learned in the automotive industry were key to my being hired by Auer Precision.  Len and I still consider it the best move we ever made.  No, I do not miss the automotive industry in its current state of near bankruptcy.  Breaks my heart to watch the Detroit 3 struggling, although the writing has been on the wall for 30 years.

M: What is your CAD software background, and how did you get involved with SolidWorks software?

A: My CAD software exposure is actually pretty limited for production work. I knew of ProE before ProE went mainstream from my Dad, who saw an early demo of it when Parametric Technologies was pitching it to GM way back in the mid 80’s.  He told me that if I ever had an opportunity to work with ProE I should jump at the chance.  He was among the first users of CAD for production work at GM in the 70’s and understood what a game changer ProE would be to the industry.

I have ten years experience with GM’s in house design software called CGS.  This was a non-parametric, 3D wire frame and surface modeler.  When I first trained in CGS we used black & white monitors, with light pens.  You differentiated design elements with solid, center and phantom line types just like the board drafters did. Soon we went to color monitors, got space balls and mice, we eventually upgraded to workstations instead of the big, expensive boxes hooked up to a mainframe computer.

Back in the mid 90’s I knew of AutoCAD and SolidWorks, but from our perspective with the powerful design software and workstations we used at GM, considered them mildly interesting bits of software.  With the limited computing power of personal computers back then, real CAD design work on a PC was a dream.

That opinion quickly changed and when I found out I was going to move to Arizona in late 1998 I worked very hard on the task to get up to speed with AutoCAD.  I could see that AutoCAD was the design software of choice outside of the automotive industry.  Luckily I had a friend using AutoCAD for their architectural business and was able to use that for a crash course.  Being a geek and with good drafting skills AutoCAD was easy to learn, 2D manual drafting without the eraser dust.

I first started using SolidWorks in 2003. Auer Precision had purchased a seat of it a few years earlier but there wasn’t the business need to use SolidWorks as all of our customers used AutoCAD.  That changed in 2003 with new projects and customers wanting 3D solid models.  From there it was a very quick transition into SolidWorks.  It has been our main engineering design tool ever since.

M: Aside from the great advice you give users on the SolidWorks forums, you are best known for your computer hardware knowledge, and building killer fast computers. How did you get interested in building your own computers?

A: Not quite sure how I got interested in building computers.  My first computer was a Commadore 64, then a Commadore 128.  I remember owning a IBM PC 286 Model 30, then some Toshiba 386 and 486 laptop computers.  I think the first time I dove into building my first computer was a system with an Cyrix 486 cpu in it.  From there I have just been a hobby builder, bouncing between purchasing OEM systems and building my own.

If I look around my office here I can see 5 old computer carcasses and two of my most recent computer builds that I still use daily.  I suspect the desire to build my own computer comes from the influences of my Dad and Len.  Len and I have a saying that anyone can go out and buy it.  It is more fun to build your own.  There is a strong do-it-yourself influence in our household.

M: When did you build the first one?

A: I think it was an old Cyrix 486 system, which would be around the early 90’s.

M: Do you have a process for selecting components?

A: I am looking to be on the leading edge of components, but not so extreme as to pay a huge premium for performance.  My latest Core i7 build is the most I have ever spent on hardware and it has been worth it for the SolidWorks performance it has.

I read a lot on the internet to keep up with current hardware reviews and also what is in the pipeline for new cpu architectures from Intel and AMD.  Sites like AnandTech.com keep me up to date on what is in the pipeline.  Their reviews help me decide what will give the best bang for the buck with hardware.

I buy all my components from Newegg.com and use the product reviews from their customers to see what is good and more importantly what is junk.  There is usually a buzz on the internet for the good hardware.  If you keep your purchases to good, solid component manufacturers and don’t go too cheap or too exotic you can easily build good systems.

M: How do you guarantee that components are compatible?

A: It is always a bit of a gamble and that is some of the appeal of building your own system.  I do not go too exotic or cheap on hardware.  With today’s computer technology, getting hardware conflicts is not like it was ten to fifteen years ago.  So the improvement in the overall industry makes the computer build process less of a gamble.  If you use a good supplier for components you can usually return them if there are issues.  Although I have never had to do that, I have been very fortunate in that regard.

M: Do you often have to troubleshoot a build?

A: No, I have been fortunate in not needing to troubleshoot a computer build that I can remember.

M: Do you build computers because it is less expensive, because you get a faster box than an off-the-shelf or some other reason?

A: I build computers because it is enjoyable.  There is a lot of satisfaction with researching, purchasing and assembling your own system.  It is the same reason I am a mechanical designer.  I love seeing a design I created in the computer come to life out in our own shop or the production areas at Auer Precision.  It is a natural extension of my other hobbies.  Sometimes buying OEM is the way to go, sometimes I can only get what I want by building my own.

M: What advice would you give to amateurs out there who would like to build their own computers?

A: Read, read, read up on everything you can on the internet.  There is tons of useful info out on the net.  Then it is a matter of diving in.  The only way to learn is to give it a try.  You might make a mistake or two along the way, but that is all part of the process.  It is very satifying completing a successful computer build.

Thank you Anna for taking the time to answer my questions. I know you’re an inspiration to many people out there who want to be as knowledgable and wise!