Four years.

It’s been four years since Fusion 360 was announced during the 2012 Autodesk University keynote by Autodesk CEO, Carl Bass (oh yeah, and this happened too). That year was also the first time we invited you (newbies back then, Expert Elites today) to come and hang out with our team, network with other Fusionists, and help shape the future of the software. One of the best things that came out of this was our Fusion 360 award ceremony, where we recognized you for your talent, enthusiasm, and generous time spent helping others in the Fusion 360 community.

Since then, we’ve made it a Fusion 360 family tradition to roll out the red carpet and host a smashing meetup extravaganza so that we can recognize you for being awesome at what you do, and all the different ways you’ve influenced the community. We had a great one last year, with Mark Hughes (HughesTooling), Jesse Urban (jjurban55), Jeff Hooper(bmxjeff), Claas Kuhnen (cekuhnen), Casey Cole Rogers, Ari Horowitz, David Escobar being awarded sweet Fusion “F” trophies for their outstanding contributions.

Last night, we just wrapped up another great meet-up with a new group of award winners. Here are this years rad Fusionists.

Recognizing Bill Dieter – President of Terrazign

Bill is no stranger to innovation. When Bill was initially introduced to Fusion 360, he passionately shared our vision for the future, and treated the Fusion 360 team as if we were a part of his extended family.  Using every opportunity to provide valuable feedback based off of his vast knowledge of textiles, he took it upon himself to work directly with Exact Flat to help refine the add-in that now provides an invaluable workflow.

Bill and his Glenn Harness for NASA astronauts so they can be more “grounded” in zero gravity and better maintain their exercise regimens.

Bill took the design to manufacturing project to heart by examining his current challenges in prototyping workflows and pushing Fusion 360 into new areas that would have been difficult to do on our own. The cardboard manikin he’s using as part of his AU 2016 class started as a project for a customer where traditional methods simply weren’t cutting it (pun intended), so he used 123D Make in conjunction with Fusion 360 to slice a model into pieces that could be cut and assembled within hours, at very low cost.  Huge appreciation goes to Bill for sharing his passion and knowledge, which directly benefits the entire community.

Don’t be fooled, this Fusion-vest is custom-fit!

Congrats Bill!

Recognizing Peter Doering aka @TrippyLighting

If you’ve ever been stuck with something tricky in Fusion 360, or maybe completely new and not sure where to start, you likely received help and guidance from @TrippyLighting on our community forums.  Seven days a week, he has the patience of an oyster to ensure you’re successful, but also isn’t afraid to show a little German tough love if you’re not following the rules.

 You’ll hear him again and again refer to “Rule #1”, which is, “create a component, and activate it”, or maybe if you didn’t share enough details, “If you want help, please make a screencast and share your design”.  By day, Peter is a mechatronics engineer who has used CAD systems professionally and privately for over 25 years, and on the side, creates some stunning light art displays under the brand, aptly named as Trippy Lighting.

A Trippy Lighting x Autodesk Fusion 360 light fixture, proudly displayed in our Portland, Oregon office. And yeah, it’s pretty darn trippy. 

Thank you Peter for your continuous support. You sir, are a rad dude.

Recognizing Seth Madore aka @LibertyMachine

Almost exactly two years ago, Seth decided to give Fusion 360 a try, and boy are we glad he did!  He’s now one of the top contributors on the Fusion 360 CAM forum, and recently promoted to Expert Elite.  Machining is life for Seth, and with nearly two decades under his belt, and takes every opportunity he can to to help others with the most basic of questions, to the most complex, as well picking up new tricks along the way.  What’s even more amazing is that he’s been doing all of this while working nights and weekends to make the recent transition to full-time self employment. Hat’s off to you, Seth – hope to see you at AU next year!

Congratulations again to Bill, Peter, and Seth!

And there you have it. We have officially kicked off Autodesk University 2016! There are a ton of great classes and events this year, as well as some special announcements at the keynote – we’ll be covering these next couple of days as much as we can here and throughout our Facebook and Instagram channels using #AU2016 and #Fusion360.

Special thanks to Pluralsight for helping make the Meetup happen this year, and giving a year subscription to their service. Thanks to Microsoft for providing each of our community winners a new Surface Book.