Note: This article is written and published in Ukrainian and is a translated version of the original published here.
Question: Tell us a little about yourself. In the context of education, experience, maybe a hobby.
Answer:
Education
Specialist in the field of computational mechanics and CAD (CAx/PDM/PLM). He received basic theoretical knowledge in mathematics and mechanics at Kharkiv Polytechnic with a degree in Dynamics and Strength. He chose the specialty in a directed and conscious way in order to further improve the level obtained within the framework of the physics and mathematics gymnasium. But, although the training could hardly be called an easy walk, the main problem was that the initial base was higher than the general one. Accordingly, as at school, I was constantly looking for something to do. And I am very grateful to those teachers who gave interesting and non-standard tasks, helped to prepare for Olympiads, scientific competitions and conferences.
An important step in my career and even my studies was the start of work at the Tensor Research Center of our university, because it was thanks to this that the theoretical knowledge gained within the framework of the "compulsory" and "arbitrary" program began to turn into practical skills for solving real problems. Within the framework of "Tensor", both people who have been in the industry for a long time, and active young people - graduate students and senior students, worked on the tasks. And this was also a steep impetus, because it became possible not to drown in the "swamp of everyday life", but to "compete" with people, each of whom was somehow better than you.
Experience
25 years have passed, but I still remain part of the same team, and even with people who, for various reasons, went into "free swimming", we maintain close ties. Over the years, we have participated in projects from very different industries from industry to medicine, from shipbuilding to aerospace. These were tasks from local, Ukrainian customers, as well as foreign and global. Thus, one of the largest projects in which we took part was the Panama Canal modernization project. In most projects, we were only responsible for checking the strength, rigidity, and durability of individual small components and structural elements. But there were also projects where we acted as developers of evaluation methods, or even ready-made code, which then sometimes became part of commercial CAx solutions. All this provided a unique and diverse experience, knowledge and introductions.
Hobby
As for hobbies, there were many and very different ones. However, at the moment, the main hobby has become educational activities and popularization of the S.T.E.M. direction (Science - Science, Technology - Technology, Engineering - Engineering and Mathematics - Mathematics). In recent years, this has been accompanied by the creation of Ukrainian-language content, including to popularize Autodesk products.
Question: When you first learned about Autodesk. But what was the first experience?
Answer:
I got my first experience with Autodesk products 30 years ago, it was AutoCAD version 10. The ability to make 2D drawings did not impress me much, because at that time it was much easier, more convenient and faster for me to do it manually. And taking into account the limited availability of computers and printers of a type other than the "matrix", the idea of using "Aladdin's lamp" to solve household issues (that is, the design of drawings) caused alienation. But the availability of the opportunity to work in 3D created an unforgettable experience. At that time, I didn't know anything about Autodesk or CAD in general, but it opened the door to a strange new world full of adventures and wonders (as well as suffering and deadlines).
The ability to create quite complex 3D geometry with fairly simple command files and even make animations (in a sense) was really fascinating. At that time, it was very difficult to get access not only to software, but also to literature about the operation of programs. But my access to computers was quite limited. Therefore, the main source of information was low-quality printouts of pieces of help or foreign books and notebooks with sketches and records of the experience gained.
A little later, the development of the industry increased the number of computers in the industry and even at home, original printed copies of English-language and even translated books began to appear, and the list of CAD software that I had to get acquainted with expanded. Over time, relatively adequate access to the Internet appeared, and quantitative phenomena turned into qualitative ones. There are forums of interest, access to original sources of information.
Around this time, I moved away from AutoCAD in the direction of parametric modeling systems, and engineering analysis systems. These were mostly competitive solutions, due to the fact that Autodesk had nothing to offer at all in the direction of CAE, and in the direction of modeling, Autodesk Inventor was, and was used, but mainly as an add-on to AutoCAD for tasks that it could not cope with (at least that's how it looked in our opinion).
Over time, not only the CAD market and the way they are used has changed, but the list of products belonging to the Autodesk family has also expanded significantly. And as a team that actively used and implemented information technologies in practice and education, we cooperated with local partners of Autodesk, and with customers, and with active educators, and even with the vendor itself (within certain limits).
So, at one time they were one of those who actively tried to convince Autodesk of the need to take a step in improving the accessibility of its products for educators. Now many are already accustomed to the fact that Autodesk products (and later many competitive solutions) are free for students, teachers and educational institutions. But for 15 years, this looked like a risky and non-standard step. It is unlikely that this is the result of our efforts, but we can 😉 smear ourselves.
Also, as an example of cooperation, we can cite projects such as "Masters of Simulation", or the localization of Programs and information resources on them, which helped the market learn about the capabilities of CAE products that appeared in the company's portfolio.
You can probably recall the active actions to create and popularize communities of educational and professional users around Autodesk and its products. We are talking about the official forum, and additional personalized blogs, channels, forums, various online and offline events, contests in which we acted as participants and sometimes as co-organizers.
Autodesk Community Manufacturing User Day meetup in Kharkiv
Question: You have experience in creating and interacting with communities such as Saprobasni, Fusion 360 in UA. I wanted to clarify what is the goal of the community, what values do you invest, what results does it give?
Answer:
Even 30 years ago, when I was just starting my journey, I noticed several points that shaped my current approach to communities and their values. All people are different. Someone has an outstanding talent for something, someone has a mediocre... And someone has no talent. Someone makes an effort to learn the basics, to learn new things... And someone is limited to what is. Unfortunately, no effort can replace the missing talent. However, without replacement, they can compensate. And over time, a talented person who did not put enough effort can begin to lose to mediocrity who worked like crazy. Therefore, for me, it is clear and obvious that you need to make an effort and learn both the basics and the new is the only way not to be thrown on the sidelines of industry and life.
However, there is another important point here, namely what to do then and the knowledge and experience gained. During all this time, I have seen many people who, having gained knowledge and experience, tried to minimize information leaks in order to be the only specialist, and, Newton forbid, not to breed competitors for themselves. And I saw people who approached this issue not logically, not intelligently and not rationally, but shared the knowledge gained and helped others. And as strange as it may sound, the first approach has advantages only in the short distance. In the long run, people who help others see much more tasks, options that form a more holistic picture, give more skills, and allow you to close gaps in knowledge. As they say: I have already explained so many times that I even understood myself.
At the CAD Olympiad during the verification of tasks
That's probably why I always tried to take part in various communities, where I tried not only to teach something, but also, if possible, to help someone. However, I did it on other people's platforms for a long time because I didn't think I had a sufficient level of expertise. Over time, I changed my point of view a little, but not because I decided that I had become a super expert, but because for various reasons, the multiple results of such educational activities were simply wasted and disappeared. Accordingly, a desire to keep some things under personal control was formed. Accordingly, I continue to participate in various technical projects and communities and try to help, sometimes with words, sometimes with deeds, but at the same time I have several "islands of safety" (resources and communities where I am an administrator or author) where I try to gather people with similar thematic interests.
Well, I use these communities to promote my personal brand, demonstrate my own coolness, or for mutual assistance - it's better to ask community members.
My most famous projects are "CAPRobasni", "Fusion360inUa" and "FEAryTales".
Saprobasni is the oldest project that started as a text blog with industry thoughts and training materials, and over time has developed into a YouTube channel and a discord server. Since 2022, after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russians, like most of my activities, the project switched to the Ukrainian language with the complete removal of developments in the language of the aggressor. This project, despite its multi-vendor focus, is part of AGN (Autodesk Group Network).
The project and communityFusion360inUawas born from the fact that Autodesk Fusion has a free version for non-commercial tasks and one of the cheapest commercial versions, which are very actively used in Ukraine in some (very many actually) tasks of protecting our state from the attack of a neighboring state. However, among those who do a lot of useful things, there are not so many people who know English well. To simplify this process, to minimize the use of enemy resources, information leaks, and much more, we created the so-called "safe harbor".
This is important because, unfortunately, representatives of the aggressor country are not ashamed to use various technical tricks to circumvent the restrictions imposed on them by Autodesk and the so-called Western countries, to violate license agreements and use Fusion and other products to spread aggression and continue aggressive actions.
Here I would like to express my deep gratitude to Autodesk both in terms of its principled position on the aggressor country, and on support for Ukraine, and for the opening of the official Ukrainian-speaking community on the Autodesk forum and other similar movements in May 2022. Within the entire market, this solution can be called unique.
If we return to the question of communities, their values, outcomes and AGN...
So values... many may think that the communities I lead, and even this text, are not purely engineering and technical, but rather "politicized". And this is actually true, because, as practice has shown, the slogan "engineering outside politics" is an interesting concept that could be said to not work. But this will not be true, because it actually works, but it works in favor of those who consciously use this slogan politically to achieve their own, mostly not good goals. Therefore, I believe that even engineering, technical, artistic, sports any communities should promote and serve not only the improvement of purely individual engineering, technical and other areas, but also the civilization of society, raising moral principles, achieving justice and general education of people.
I don't remember what, but I guess I'm talking about something highly intellectual
As for the results. It is difficult for me to assess the change in the moral component, and even the improvement of the educational level. However, for three years, within the framework of Fusion360inUa, we have gathered an audience of more than 3000 people on YouTube and 1800 on Telegram, to whom we are trying to convey not only the technical aspects of using Autodesk Fusion, but also the values promoted by Autodesk. These are not very large numbers, but when analyzing them, it is advisable to take into account the fact that this is a community in a local, not very common language, and the fact that the speakers of this language, like our country as a whole, are at war with a much stronger and larger attacker who does not shy away from any dirty tricks. So, in general, people have more painful problems than working in engineering programs, and the main problem here is to survive. In every sense of the term. Because of this, at least one of the community projects – the translation of the interface and help Autodesk Fusion, unfortunately, is not moving as fast as we would like.
As for AGN. I consider this a very useful and important area that can help many Autodesk users in finding global and local communities (both in the geographical sense and in the direction of individual technical issues, directions, industries). And for the company itself, Autodesk is a powerful tool and promotion of their ideas, technologies, values, and a powerful feedback tool. Because in today's world, not everyone will write to technical support or go to an official forum. Someone will prefer to ask a question "a blogger they trust", and someone will prefer more modern and dynamic (as well as more convenient and familiar) communication environments such as social networks, instant messengers, etc.
The only proposal (which arises for me as an adjunctor and a member of many technical communities) to Autodesk is to support not only communities based around Autodesk products, but also more general technical or even separate very specialized communities, within which communication can take place not on the topics of Autodesk products, but on solving problems in which the company's products can be useful. This can simplify the process of promoting solutions and tools.
As an example, tens of thousands of people have passed through volunteer communities such asDrukArmyWinUAhub which are focused on helping the Armed Forces of Ukraine (Armed Forces of Ukraine) by printing useful things. For some of them, one-time assistance has turned into a hobby, and from it often into a new learned profession. And I think I don't need to explain how to print technical products related to the issues of their development, but these issues with Autodesk products. However, at the moment, such and many other communities (from radio electronics, drone building, woodworking, private construction, game development, etc.) cannot claim interest and, as a result, support from Autodesk. Which leaves a large piece of the pie uncovered, and for the prey of fellow competitors in the market.
Question: A painful topic for education. What can you say here, what advantages does an auto desk give, what may be missing?
Answer:
Yes, education issues are painful. No matter how much I communicate with people involved in this issue, there are a dozen problems everywhere that are common to any country. One of the problems is the availability of education, knowledge, tools. From my point of view, educational materials and tools for learning should be as accessible and open as possible. Partly because I continue to teach at the university (in parallel with my main work), partly because I post my educational materials in general for free (and I started doing it even when it was not fashionable (s)).
By the nature of my work, I have to work with engineering tools from various vendors, and the great advantage of Autodesk is precisely the availability of its tools for educators, in every sense of the term. Moreover, it will not be a strong distortion to say that Autodesk has led the movement in the availability of engineering tools and information and educational materials for educators in all countries. Its products are available not only to students for personal study, but also to teachers, scientists, and last but not least, for universities as well. On official resources, you can find a lot of educational materials on all products for different industries and which will be useful for users of all levels. And I am very grateful to Autodesk for such an initiative.
Participants of the international competition Autodesk Panorama 2015 [Anton is not visible in the frame, but he was present at the event with his student]
Autodesk also had a bunch of other initiatives aimed at popularizing the use of its products in STEM, improving the quality of both individual students, teachers, and the educational industry as a whole. It is thanks to such initiatives (student community with their own levels, competitions, certifications) that we once managed to interest many of our students and significantly improve the quality of general training of students. For example, our students have repeatedly become prize-winners and winners of Ukrainian Olympiads with the support of Autodesk, regional and even global competitions: Grabcad, Autodesk Panorama.
Works of our students, winners of the Autodesk Robot Gripper Arm Design Challenge
It is a pity that at the moment most of such undertakings have come to naught. And in my opinion, Autodesk has lost the opportunity to create a large number of loyal supporters here. But perhaps it is the teacher who was deprived of the opportunity to motivate students with various "sweets" in me.
At the moment, in Ukraine, due to the war, the occupied territories, constant shelling with human casualties and destruction, including cultural and educational facilities, frequent lack of electricity and a bunch of other reasons... Education is in such a difficult situation that it is not possible to describe it in censored words. A lot could be written here, but any help to maintain quality, raise motivation (students, teachers, management of educational institutions), especially if it is systematic, would be very useful. And most importantly, the methods that will work in such conditions can be safely transferred to less difficult conditions. However, I would like to thank you for what we have for now, because no matter how much we want to simplify our lives - "saving the drowning is the work of the drowning people themselves."
One of the buildings of NTU "KhPI", which was damaged as a result of a rocket attack
A note from the Community Manager, Dmytro Mukhin: I also studied at NTU "KhPI" and it was in this gym that I was engaged in rock climbing...
Photo from 2010, during New Year's classes with various climbing competitions (in the gym that is now destroyed by the aggressor, and this climbing wall can be seen in the photo above, if you look closely at the far part on the left)
Question: The key thing is what can you say about the calculations in the autodesk products? What you like, what not so much, maybe there are some interesting projects that can be shared
Answer:
First appearance of CAE within Autodesk Fusion (formerly known as Fusion 360)
Difficult question. On the positive side, one thing can be said about the calculation tools in the Autodesk portfolio – they are present. Among the main names that were bought out to fill the gap are Algor (hereinafter Autodesk Simulation Mechanical), CFDesign (hereinafter Autodesk Simulation CFD and Autodesk CFD), Ecotect (hereinafter Autodesk Ecotect, Autodesk Green Building Studio), Robobat Millennium (Autodesk Robot Structural Analysis), MoldFlow (hereinafter Autodesk Moldflow), NEi Nastran-in-CAD (hereinafter Autodesk Inventor Nastran) and some others. Some of the products simply changed their name, some lost their independence and entered other products (Ecotec), some unfortunately simply ceased to exist (Algor). As it was written earlier, my colleagues and I even took part in certain initiatives to promote these products. Using these products in cooperation with local partners of Autodesk, real problems from users were solved. Information about such projects can be found online, because they were reported at various Autodesk events. Accordingly, the products exist and can work and benefit.
Question: Maybe there is a topic that you would like to raise beyond the already voiced questions?
Answer:
If you think about it, 30+ years of my life are somehow connected with Autodesk products, thanks to which I discovered a whole hidden world...
If you think about it, 20+ years of my educational activity are very closely related to Autodesk products, thanks to which I met many wonderful and interesting people, competed, learned, taught, studied while teaching, saw how my students' eyes light up and they discover new worlds...
If you think about it, for 15+ years I have been working on the creation of wardrobes and closets, the doors of which lead polite and well-mannered guests of these small but cozy "apartments" to new worlds created, including by Autodesk...
If you think about it, for 10+ years now, Autodesk has been (in various ways) taking part in my "tour operator" activities, confirming the status of a reliable guide through hidden worlds...
If you think about it, Autodesk has been communicating with us for 3+ years (albeit limitedly) in Ukrainian during our travels...
Autodesk forum that spoke in Ukrainian
And I think you don't need to think too much here to understand that I am grateful to Autodesk, its management, employees, partner representatives, and fellow users for these long and vivid memories. And I, as a researcher, wonder what will happen next.
Creative successes and Peaceful Sky.
Note: This article is written and published in Ukrainian and is a translated version of the original published here.
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