We thought we would open PADT’s doors to families and maybe a few people would stop by. Over 250 people did just that. What a great evening of smiling kids and adults enjoying the excitement of engineering. Exciting engineering? Yes, we know enough to not talk about quality system protocols, matrix inversions, and non-linear turbulence model convergence. We stuck to 3D Printing, elephants on skateboards, and 3D scanners. And we fed everyone pizza.
It was a great evening where everyone learned something. The focus was on exposing what engineers do, what PADT does, to people who may not be technical. Mostly kids but we also saw it as a way for engineers to show their family members and friends what engineering is about. The results far exceeded our expectation, mostly because of how great everyone who showed up was.
Some of the quotes from people who have emailed to thank us are:
“Thank you for opening up your office to me. What a cool place! Even though I have been familiar with and worked with 3D printing for 20+ years, it is always nice to see the new technology, products, and the output of the products. “
“… to see my son and all of the other kids so excited and amazed was truly awesome. Mason told me it was the best night of his life! And this morning his first words to me where thanking me for taking him to the event and when can we go back.”
“This is such a great opportunity for me to show my grandkids what I spent my life doing, and seeing them get so excited about it is wonderful”
The best part of the event for most of us here at PADT were the fantastic questions. As one of our engineers said “for 2 hours I was just lost in the joy of positive human interaction.” We do love what we do here, but it was nice to share it with other people.
Below are some pictures from the evening. Make sure you sign up for PADT’s email list to get invites to future events.
We were pleased to be named a AZ SciTech Festival Signature Event
At several points in the evening, the line was headed out the door.
The Demo room was full of 3D Printers and the kids loved handling the parts.Our office robot was a huge hit.The seminar room was turned into a hands-on lab for everyone to touch and feel the engineering tools we use.Some of the youngest attendees were able to give ANSYS AIM a literal spin and model the effect of a kid, a dad, and an elephant standing on a skateboard.Some people just took to a given tool, even advanced simulation.Students with exposure to engineering were able to ask our experts in-depth questions about technologies.The haptic device was a huge hit. It give real feedback as you edit and probe an object on the computer. Needless to say, kids adapted to it far faster than the adults.Engineering students were able to dive deep into the mechanics behind 3D Printing as well as its real world applications in industry.This is Ovid. He is PADT’s new mascot. We hope to use him more in the future to help explain what we do here.This station shows how 3D Printing works, by stacking layers of material. Ovid doesn’t look as good in low resolution.Scanning was a great way for everyone to see how we inspect and reverse engineer objects.
Most of our customers receive their support over the phone or via email. Customers who are close by can also set up a face-to-face appointment with one of our engineers.
