What Did the Kids Do with the TV Remote? CADD Edge and Solidworks Render That Question Moot

It’s happened to you, and you were not amused. You sit down to watch a big game or the final episode of your favorite show and…you can’t find the darned remote.

In what’s an excellent bit of marketing and problem solving, the team at Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS say they called on CADD Edge to rapidly create the most important fixture in television. Not the screen itself, not the stand or bracket on which it rests — but the remote and a way to wrangle it without resorting to hiding it in a drawer.

CADD Edge was founded to provide customers with engineering computer aided design software and services, and they say as their organization has grown and technology has advanced they’ve refined their product lines to “suit the evolving requirements of the engineering community.”

So when Bertrand Sicot, Dassault Systèmes’ Vice President of Sales and Value Solutions, lost his remote, the stage was set.

The new CEO of SOLIDWORKS, Gian Paolo Bassi, jumped in while CADD Edge created the 3D design and production of a 3D fixture I’d personally love to have on my coffee table. The video they made of the process — a fixture to do away with the problem of the misplaced remote control — is actually funny, but it’s also a demonstration of the way a good idea can go from conception to execution at lighting speed with 3D design and printing.

Bassi replaced Sicot as the CEO of SOLIDWORKS as Sicot was promoted to his position with Dassault Systèmes. Bassi was instrumental in the growth of SOLIDWORKS as a Vice President of Research and Development, and the company says his hands-on technical approach and working collaboration with the SOLIDWORKS user community of more than two million engineers and designers was key to his success. Bassi led the development of the brand’s cloud applications, Mechanical Conceptual and Industrial Conceptual, which encompass a 3D modeling environment and online data storage and social collaboration.

At 55 years old, Bassi has more than 25 years of experience in 3D, CAD, and PLM application development and prior to joining SOLIDWORKS, he was founder and CTO of RIWEBB where he oversaw the development of new technologies for the mechanical and architectural design automation industry.

Sicot took over the company’s indirect sales network of over 500 partners in 36 countries and he joined SOLIDWORKS in 1997 as Regional Sales Manager for Western Europe and Scandinavia.

But back to the really important stuff. The product of their labor has a built-in rotational element – complete with angle stops — a locking mechanism and a mounting bracket to make sure the Most Important Device in Television stays where it belongs.

Using a Stratasys Dimension 1200es and engineering-grade ABS plastic, the team say the entire process of 3D scanning the target part, designing the mount and fixture in CAD and 3D printing the result was completed in just a few hours.

You can check out the video here.

Would you like one of these lockable television remote fixtures? Have you ever worked with CADD Edge or SOLIDWORKS on a project? Let us know in the 3D Printed Television Remote Fixture forum thread on 3DPB.com.