Basics of Solidworks

Grabbed this mainly to get a baseline for the team before tossing them into CAD work tied to our automotive fixtures. The Basics of SolidWorks pace fits a beginner, and the section in Lesson 3 where sketch relations flip from blue to black finally gave a shared language for design intent during PR reviews. It’s practical enough that folks could follow along between meetings and still push something usable to the repo by end of day. I wasn’t sold on the quick pass over mates; a bit more on troubleshooting over‑defined assemblies would’ve saved a few Slack pings. Cost-wise it’s fine for onboarding, especially if you don’t want senior engineers burning cycles re‑explaining extrude vs cut or fillet order. not a magic fix, but it works as a reference when someone’s stuck and just needs the basics lined up before touching real parts in prod.

Good grounding on the Sketch Constraints chapter; the moment where the rectangle flips from blue to black after adding coincident and horizontal relations stuck, and it maps to how errors show up later in FeatureManager. mostly works for beginners, but I wasn't sold on how fast it skims mates and basic assemblies; a bit more on rebuild errors would've helped.