Between the Lines

Portland Adult Soapbox Derby 2019

Two weeks ago I had one of the coolest volunteer jobs as a Course Marshall for the 22nd annual Portland Adult Soapbox Derby held in Portland's beautiful Mount Tabor Park. I spent all day with a bullhorn and a radio clearing the course, heckling people who ignored the course rules, assuring the safety of the derby cars and drivers as well as the spectators, and making people laugh and have fun. There were several races and we had a few... Read more →

Kids at Autodesk Day – Portland 2019

This is always one of my favorite days of the year and it was held in the Autodesk Portland office yesterday. We had over 60 kids of our employees show up for a day filled with fun activities, snacks, food, and even robot rides. Read more →

Portland Autodesk Employee Mass Timber Field Trip

Almost Two weeks ago I arranged a special tour for Autodesk Portland employees with two of our customers a field trip of a mass timber building designed by Skylab Architecture constructed by Anderson Construction and located a block from our Autodesk Portland office. Following the building tour, we loaded up on a shuttle and went to Northwest Portland for a tour of CutMyTimber’s NW Portland shop with Hundegger Speed-Cut SC-1, Hundegger K2, and Kuka automation which was used in making... Read more →

Weekend Adventure Rewind – Timberline to Paradise Park on Mt Hood

This weekend I did some solo adventure hiking up on beautiful and iconic Mount Hood, an extinct volcano with an elevation of 11,161 feet. My route in the 58 degree cloud covered weather was from Timberline Lodge to Paradise Park Loop and then the Paradise Park Loop at 14.5 miles and 5900 feet elevation climb. I got rained on but mostly covered in clouds and cool temperatures, but still amazing and without the sun and heat it limited the sunburn... Read more →

Autodesk Portland Office and Our Changing Neighborhood

The Autodesk Portland is surrounded by an ever changing Central Eastside Industrial District neighborhood of Portland. This neighborhood has historically been fruit and produce wholesalers and manufacturing shops but that has been changing over the years. While a great deal of it is being planned and nurtured for the future and some areas protected by the Portland Innovation Quadrant and an Industrial District. Portland is changing and depending on who you talk to and their perspective it is for the... Read more →

The Biggest Welcome Flying Back Home to Portland

It is the view of Mt Hood welcoming me home when landing. I get excited viewing it our the aircraft window seeing all the trails, lakes, and memories of adventures I have had there, and those I will have in the future. Read more →

Attention Startups - Apply to PIE Shop Portland

Applications for the next classes of PIE and PIE Shop are now open. They will close on August 18. Please share far and wide with promising founders and startups https://piepdx.com/apply We’re super interested in the startup you’re building and we’d love to hear more about it Applications are currently open for two flavors of PIE: PIE supports companies that are building digital products. We have a deep history in Software as a Service (SaaS) and B2B companies, having helped startups... Read more →

Autodesk Lunch with the Customer Events

I started a program in our Autodesk Portland office this year to connect our awesome local Autodesk customers with our awesome employees and so far it has received great feedback from both customers and employees that have participated in it. The two groups don't meet often enough and also may be limited to an industry but with several industries and technologies converging it is important for everyone to be connected and exposed to different customers and industries to better understand... Read more →

New High School Interns in Autodesk Portland Office

We are honored to have 3 college student interns and 9 high school interns from FIRST Robotics FRC Teams this year working on software in our Autodesk Portland office. They are once again working on the Autodesk Synthesis software that is free and open for FIRST FRC Robotics teams to use to simulate their code and import their robot design before competition. It is an amazing project and fun to play based in Unity. From left to right: Kira is... Read more →

3D Printed Titanium Solid bike in Portland

The SOLID bike is now proudly on display in the city that inspired it, and in the office of the software used in the design, our Autodesk Portland office. SOLID bike: The first connected, 3D printed titanium bike by Ti Cycles Design & engineering software: Autodesk Fusion 360 and Autodesk Alias For most of us, buying a bicycle means picking out a stock model that best fits our size and style. But, that comes with trade-offs, since mass-manufactured bikes can’t... Read more →

Proud by Design in Portland

What an amazing weekend of Portland Pride, with Autodesk as a sponsor again. We have a booth all weekend and in the parade Sunday. We had or Autodesk soapbox derby car for pride that was designed and built by employees and then will race at Portland Adult Soapbox Derby August 17th. Everyone loved climbing in the derby car for photos and also making bracelets and notebooks at our booth. Read more →

Autodesk Portland Sponsoring Pride 2019 This weekend

Autodesk is proud to sponsor Portland Pride for a third year. This is our second year walking in the parade and will be featuring our Pride Derby Cart made by our employees in 2019! We hope you will come see us this weekend in Portland Pride parade where we are in the ninth position, visit our booth and say “hi”, and see our Autodesk derby cart that will compete in the Portland Adult Soapbox races this August. We are Proud... Read more →

Portland Bike More Challenge 2019

Autodesk Portland office took 5th place in the 200-499 staff category for the Bike More 2019 challenge for May in Portland Oregon. Most of us are still biking to work most of the time with all the great bike lanes, dedicated bike paths, awesome views and great weather. I logged 100 miles for the month of may on my bike mostly commuting to the office. Cumulative stats for the Bike More 2019 which as a challenge in the month of... Read more →

Autodesk Portland

This morning we held the opening of our 3rd floor and 6th floor spaces at the Autodesk Portland Oregon office. We moved into this renovated historic building just over a year ago with a couple construction phases with the first phase being our reception area, 2nd, 4th, and 5th floors and access to the deck for last summer, but now we are complete except some area of the 1st floor. We now have plenty of room again for allow the... Read more →

Employee Made Arcade at Autodesk's Portland Office

Our Portland Autodesk office took the Autodesk tagline of “Make Anything” quite literal. We moved into this beautifully restored downtown central eastside Portland office a year ago. So when some of the employees heard we had a game room, they asked about an arcade game. There wasn’t an arcade game or budget – so they decided to make one. It was an organic grassroots volunteer project, but a group of employees decided “hey, lets make our own arcade console.” They... Read more →

Fusion 360 Meetup in Portland May 7th 2019

Last evening at the Autodesk Portland office a Fusion 360 Meetup (https://www.meetup.com/Portland-Fusion-360-Meetup/) was held and several attended to hear Keqing Song and Paul Sohi of the Fusion team present as well as Paul be challenged to answer questions in a “Stump the Chump” session as well as tips and tricks. It was a good time with lots of pizza, beverages and a great deal of Fusion 360 wisdom all around. Keqing Song and Paul Sohi starting the Meetup. What happens... Read more →

I love to Ride my Bicycle I Love to Ride my Bike

May is national Bike month and Portland Oregon is one of the most “Bikiest” cities around. Several of our employees commute to the office by bike and I have once again joined them as a I am a fair-weather bike commuter. I rode 7.73 miles in this morning to the Autodesk Portland office on mostly dedicated paved riding paths along the beautiful river. I would have made faster time, but a railroad crew felt it necessary and wise to inspect... Read more →

Fusion 360 Stump the Chump in Stumptown

Got stumped using Fusion 360? Don't worry, you're not alone. Lucky you, Paul Sohi, our Fusion 360 Evangelist extraordinaire / chump will be in our Autodesk Portland office, so we've decided to host a Fusion 360 meet-up and put him on the spot to answer you questions. Meet fellow users in our Portland community, as well as the folks behind the software. Paul may even show off some of his own workflow tips for making the most of Fusion 360!... Read more →

Fusion 360 Academy is Coming in August

Happening in Portland Oregon is the largest Autodesk Fusion 360 learning & networking event, the Fusion 360 Academy! The Fusion 360 Academy will offer 25+ classes taught by Autodesk experts and industry pro's, a Design Slam to show off your skills, and plenty of opportunities to network. Sign-up now and save $100 with an early-bird special! https://autode.sk/2Ipkm3I Read more →

Reddit Accolades

A photo of me was posted on Reddit today with some some Autodesk Portland colleagues with the subject “Who are you, thank you very much”. We volunteered to clean trash from our local Portland neighborhood at lunch with SOLVE Oregon. Someone noticed & wanted to say thank you. They posted a photo of us cleaning up trash on our lunch hour with a large cat looking out the window and watching us. We love our new Portland office neighborhood and... Read more →

Tap Handle Competition and I Want You To Help

In our Autodesk Portland office we are all nearing our 1 year in this beautiful historic and renovated building, and have a internal design contest. Employees are encouraged to design and 3D printed tap handles for our beer taps in the office game room named after the Portland neighborhood of Slabtown. The Slabtown game room is used for events like user groups, receptions, training, and more. I know our customers and my readers are the most skilled and talented designers... Read more →

Design Week Portland - Ultimaker+ Autodesk

Design Week Portland is right around the corner, and this year we’re partnering up with Ultimaker to help you level up your design-to-make game. Come see the latest from Ultimaker and Autodesk in Autodesk’s renovated new Portland office (renovated Towne Storage Building) just off East Burnside by the bridge in the central eastside industrial district. Look for the water tower with our logo and you can’t miss us. Parking can be a bit of a challenge at times so choose... Read more →

Attention Portland Oregon Area FIRST FRC and FTC Students

Would you like to intern for the summer at our cool Autodesk Portland office working on a real software project? The internship application was just posted by the Synthesis team for all local FRC and FTC team members. Here was our 2018 High School Interns: Calling all FRC and FTC students! The 2019 Synthesis Summer Internship applications are now open. Be sure to apply before midnight of April 30th! http://synthesis.autodesk.com/internship.html Internship Details When: 10 weeks (end of June through August)... Read more →

PIE Demo Day

What a great and inspiring event where local Portland startups presented on their products with passion and energy. It was also nice to see such an inclusive and diverse event with most of the presenters being women founders and Latina and people of color represented. One of the nice things is all of the early stage presenters are using the PIE Shop incubator in Autodesk’s Portland office and we are so lucky and grateful for them. PIE Demo Day 2019... Read more →

See Some Portland Startup Pitches Today on Pi and PIE Day

On this Pi day (3.14 etc.) I hope you will join us on the PIE (Portland Incubator Experiment) Demo Day livestream at 2PM Pacific Time on March 14, 2019. Tell everyone there is plenty of room on our livestream from Aladdin Theater in sunny Portland Oregon. https://bit.ly/PIEDD2019 We love Pi and PIE! Update: PIE Demo Day 2019 replay is already available. Just in time for some weekend binge watching. https://bit.ly/PIEDD2019 Read more →