Tales from an Autodesk University Virgin

Well, that’s it. After putting it off for 10 years, I have finally completed my first Autodesk University. I’m now sitting in Heathrow Terminal 5 waiting for my connecting flight home - a perfect time to reflect.

I set off on Monday at 12pm UK time to meet Adam, Ben and Paul, who had flown out over the weekend. After a 10-hour flight, I was picked up by a very friendly taxi driver at the airport who had been to Newcastle and loved it. It was going to be a good trip.

When I reached the strip, it was exactly what I had expected. The best way to describe what you feel while in Vegas is ‘sensory overload’. From the second you arrive, everything is shouting at you to get your attention.

I was taken aback by the sheer scale of the hotels. The Venetian is not unlike the Metro Centre with an enormous hotel sitting on top, a huge casino bolted on and then the Excel exhibition centre also bolted on for good luck. Even though I saw very little daylight, I walked for miles around these huge hotels.

I was in Orlando over the summer, so I am conditioned to American razzmatazz - but St Mark’s Square on the second floor with a canal running through it, the Doge’s Palace, Bridge of Sighs and the Campanile Tower give Galaxy’s Edge a run for its money.

This is not a place for people with addictions. I don’t drink or gamble so really this is not the place for me. There are many more vices on top of this if you are interested. Very similar to Amsterdam, there is a strong smell of cannabis as if there wasn’t enough to get up to in Vegas!

However, despite all of this, I never once felt threatened. In fact, it was the opposite. Everyone was incredibly friendly and welcoming.

The conference itself is a lesson in logistics and co-ordination. Autodesk put on one hell of a conference for 10,000 people. It’s not easy to cater for this number of people, let alone shepherding them around for a week.

The keynote was quite spectacular: lasers, DJs and more. The talks were all around sustainability and the planet. It was incredibly slick, maybe too slick for my liking.

 Everything around the conference runs like clockwork; from the people guiding you to your classes, through to the really useful app. There is even a merchandise shop where I bought some Autodesk socks of all things!

All of this has clearly been honed over many years. There has been talk of other venues in the future. This is not a bad idea; however it will be difficult to leave behind the years of tweaking to achieve such a successful event.

 bimstore had a booth in the expo. This proved to be great for meeting up over the three days and a great way to meet lots of new people from all over the world. Everyone at Autodesk University is so well connected and the world is made to feel like a very small place.

I had three chaperones for the week: fellow Spacers Adam, Ben and Paul; who are AU veterans and have been going for 10 years. They showed me the ropes and looked after me like they were taking their Dad into a nightclub.

You might think that the tickets are expensive but, they are actually good value. You could eat and drink like a king for the whole week and not spend a penny. Autodesk feed you and even give you beer at the end of every day. After that, there are the after parties where you can really go to town – but they don’t give you money for the tables!

In the conference sessions themselves, I was somewhat humbled by some of the innovation taking place across the world. As you can imagine, Autodesk attract some really clever people. Sometimes in the UK, we can often get too focused on what we are doing. There’s so much fantastic work going on in other parts of the world and lots of great examples of generative design.

 Some of the offsite manufacturing being delivered is very impressive. Marriott are delivering a 26-storey modular hotel in Manhattan and also have a 40-storey building in development.

There are still too many digital twin products which are not actually digital twins. I’m not one to get hung up on definitions but many of the new products don’t even come close. Point cloud viewers are apparently digital twins now.

The most impressive talk of the event was the one delivered by Adam and Paul - when they returned to the stand, they were like two school kids who had just been given gold stars.

To be fair, the feedback they got was amazing and we had quite a few people come to the stand after the session to tell them so. They presented their top-secret project ‘Airship v1.’ Apparently they are working on v2. If you get the chance, ask them about it!

 I’ve had a great week, learnt a lot, met loads of people and spent some quality time with the guys. After 10 years, I’m glad I went. It was worth the time.

Strangely, as I travel home, I don’t feel exhausted. That may be different tomorrow.