The design and manufacturing industry is experiencing rapid advancements, driven by cutting-edge technology and evolving market demands. Join us for a meetup where industry professionals come together to explore how designers and manufacturers are navigating, innovating, and excelling in this dynamic landscape. Tailored for designers, engineers, and other industry professionals, this event offers a unique opportunity to network, share insights, and discover the latest trends shaping the future of design and manufacturing. Be part of the conversation and engage with fellow experts to collectively push the boundaries of our industry.

Ready to reduce engineering time and get sales quotes and drawings to production faster. Come along for an unexpected but advantageous journey. Ruler is a CAD-neutral sales and design Automation, Integration, & Customization platform designed to streamline and enhance your product configuration and design processes. As one fellowship, Ruler maps the plan to CAD such as Autodesk Inventor and Revit to deliver pristine models and documentation. It offers a suite of tools that can be tailored to meet the needs of various industries, including CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote), CTO (Configure to Order), and ETO (Engineer to Order) business models. Embark on this quest with Ruler, and let it be the guiding light that leads your projects to triumph.

"As industries grow more connected, the ability to share data seamlessly across tools, teams, and domains is no longer a luxury—it’s a competitive necessity. Yet traditional data exchange methods often involve costly conversions, fragmented workflows, and loss of valuable context. This session explores how Artificial Intelligence is redefining interoperability by enabling native, intelligent data exchange across platforms and disciplines. This session will help users to discover how AI can break down silos between AEC, manufacturing, and process industry workflows—automatically interpreting and aligning domain-specific objects and data without manual intervention. Whether you're leading Management, optimizing your data strategy, or looking to future-proof your tech stack, this session will provide a clear vision for how AI-powered interoperability is shaping the next generation of connected design and engineering."

What’s the difference between topology optimization and generative design—and why does it matter when building advanced components? In this hands-on lab, we’ll explore the tools and workflows that helped Elara Aerospace design a launch-ready, record-breaking rocket built to survive the extreme forces of spaceflight. You’ll follow guided exercises in Autodesk Fusion software, learning how to harness both generative design and topology optimization to reduce mass, increase strength, and improve overall performance under tight constraints. We’ll walk through how to define loads, constraints, and materials. We’ll cover how to interpret and compare outcomes. And we’ll explore post-process geometry for manufacturability. You’ll gain practical experience in setting up a generative design study, comparing it with topology optimization, and understanding when and why each approach is appropriate. By the end, you’ll understand the theory—and have built and optimized a component for spaceflight-level performance.

How do we take innovation from one part of manufacturing and ignite transformation in another? In this session, we’ll continue the Autodesk–ModuleWorks journey around the Manufacturing Data Exchange Specification (MDES) and explore a bold new chapter: the emergence of third-party Autodesk Fusion plug-ins that bring advanced technology directly to the shop floor. We’ll spotlight SmartRoughing, the next-generation roughing toolpath initially launched in partnership with Kennametal. See a live example of how MDES and an open ecosystem allow deep tooling know-how to be deployed seamlessly inside workflows. But this session will go beyond just one toolpath—it’ll introduce "cross-pollination of manufacturing technology,” where ideas leap across disciplines to unlock new value. We’ll also preview how this approach is paving the way for technology in emerging areas, demonstrating how the same innovation model can extend manufacturing into the industrial mainstream.

Designing a drone is more than just assembling parts—it’s about bringing together electronics, mechanics, and performance into one seamless system. In this session, we will explore how to create a fully functional mechatronic drone using the all-in-one capabilities of Autodesk Fusion software. You’ll learn how to integrate a complete 3D mechanical assembly, and run simulations to validate both thermal performance and structural integrity. Whether you’re an engineer, product designer, or educator, this session will show you how to take your ideas from circuit to sky with efficiency, precision, and confidence.

Vault 2026 software has arrived, bringing new features and enhancements to improve design creation, streamline user and admin workflows, and enhance software interoperability. This session will showcase these new additions and explore their practical applications. After presenting the latest features, we'll delve into the Vault road map and discuss how you can help shape its future.

In this class, you’ll learn how to set up and optimize Stratus for mechanical contractors, based on firsthand experience. We’ll cover the essential steps for setting up Stratus from scratch, automating repetitive tasks, and streamlining workflows to improve project efficiency. You’ll gain insights into managing data and generating reports for better decision making, as well as strategies for troubleshooting and resolving issues you may encounter during the setup process. Additionally, we’ll explore techniques to speed up the development process, helping you implement Stratus faster and more effectively on your projects. Whether you’re new to Stratus or looking to enhance your skills, this class will provide valuable lessons from someone who’s recently navigated the process firsthand.

There is no single way to design a new product. The design principles needed to manufacture a coffee maker will be different from those needed for an electric vehicle. So, why can’t today’s software tools adapt to meet designers' needs? Generative AI may offer a path forward to enabling product designers to adopt agile and adaptive design workflows and support the design of complex assemblies. In this interactive session, we’ll take an in-depth look at an early-stage software prototype for AI-assisted assembly design, developed by Autodesk Research. Participants will gain insights into how the researchers used large language models (LLMs), multimodal data, and system modeling to design products from 1D to 3D. Join us if you’re a product designer, software engineer, or UX designer interested in advancing your understanding of assembly design and learning how this new innovative technology can shape the future of Design and Make industries.

In the world of engineering and design, speed and precision are crucial. Whether you’re working on complex mechanical systems, architectural plans, or intricate product designs, the time it takes to create and modify engineering drawings can make or break a project. This session will address both efficiency and faster, accuracy-creating engineering drawings in Autodesk Fusion software. We’ll explore the following innovative solutions/workflows and time-saving best practices that will help you accelerate your drawing process in Fusion: The power of Drawing Automation, Integration, & Customization, smart usage of drawing templates, techniques to speed up dimensioning and annotation, the magic of “shift” button in the Fusion Drawings, hidden gems “osnaps,” cut-copy-paste in Fusion Drawings, more than “just” a sheet bar, reusing title blocks across drawings, and many more. The goal of this session is to empower you with the knowledge to work smarter, not harder, and make your engineering drawing process more efficient and effective using Fusion.

In this session, we will travel on the journey of how students and staff at NYU created Project Mjolnir: the world’s first open-source, adaptive mountain bike to enable those with disabilities to participate in the sport of adaptive mountain biking. We’ll look at how we help students develop industry skills through experience-based learning, the methodologies we use, and the outcomes we produce with a project that goes beyond the boundaries of the university. The team has built and ridden more than 20 adaptive mountain bikes in different parts of the world, enabling people with disabilities to experience the outdoors in ways they never thought they could. Incorporating design to accommodate off-the-shelf bicycle components, an adaptable frame design, and the ability to self-build the bike, we aim to drive down the cost to a third of current offerings—as well as empower and grow a community of adaptive bike builders through educational experience-based learning.

In early design stages, assumptions become liabilities. They can result in late design changes, costly rework, and coordination issues, often due to low-quality models early on. The Informed Design API closes the gap between BIM and manufacturing, bringing manufacturing detail from Inventor to Revit through parametric models. We’ll explore how Informed Design empowers mechanical designers and Inventor users to contribute to collaborative, model-driven design remotely, reducing downstream changes and saving significant time through design Automation, Integration, & Customization and configurability. In this session, you will learn how to build parametric models, and incorporate rules, regulations, and limits into your Inventor models. We’ll discuss how to make your Informed Design models fully BIM-compliant, using best practices for naming conventions, metadata, and interoperable design intelligence. We’ll cover how Informed Design reduces risk, encourages better decision making, and brings manufacturing to the front of the design cycle.

Data Exchange software is evolving to meet the growing needs of interoperability in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. Building on the success of last year’s session, this year’s class will delve into the latest updates and enhancements of Data Exchange, showcasing a matured ecosystem of connectors that streamline workflows between various applications. Imagine effortlessly transferring subsets of your model from Revit to Rhino software, or integrating data seamlessly between Revit, Inventor, Tekla, Rhino, Power BI, and more—all now out of beta and generally available! This session will provide a comprehensive overview of the current capabilities of Data Exchange, highlight new features, and showcase real-world customer stories that demonstrate the transformative impact of these tools. Join us to learn how moving away from traditional file-based workflows to a data-focused approach can significantly reduce steps and enhance efficiency in your projects.

AI is reshaping how regulated industries build products by streamlining requirements management and reducing compliance costs. This session introduces Visure Requirements ALM with Vivia, the AI-driven assistant that transforms the Requirements Engineering lifecycle. From elicitation, analysis, and review to adherence to standards, Vivia minimizes manual effort, accelerates decision-making, and improves compliance efficiency. We’ll also show how these capabilities integrate with Autodesk Fusion Manage, bridging Requirements Management with ALM and PLM practices. Attendees will learn how combining Visure with Fusion Manage enhances collaboration, boosts product quality, shortens development cycles, and ensures readiness for evolving standards. Designed for professionals in consumer electronics, railways, medical devices, automotive, and aerospace, this session reveals how to future-proof product development and achieve AI-driven success.

Assembly design is on the edge of a transformative leap. This session will introduce a groundbreaking approach that harnesses agentic artificial intelligence (AI) to redefine how we conceive, simulate, and build complex assemblies. We’ll explore early-stage research and prototypes demonstrating how intelligent agents can collaboratively generate geometry, streamline workflows, model dynamic systems, and adapt designs in real time based on performance feedback. If you work with systems design, simulation, or multidisciplinary workflows, this session will challenge your assumptions and offer a glimpse into the future of AI-augmented engineering. Prepare to rethink what’s possible!

Everywhere you look within Autodesk University, from mainstage to industry keynotes, everyone is talking about Autodesk Fusion software. You've heard how it’s Autodesk’s design and manufacturing platform and that it’s growing faster than any other software in the industry. But you likely still wonder what it’s like to actually use it. Fusion must be something truly special to make everyone so obsessed with this CAD/CAM tool, right? In this AU hands-on lab, you'll experience firsthand what the fuss is all about. Through hands-on exercises, learn how to create a design from scratch, analyze that design, and even optimize it. Then, you'll learn how to program your design for computer numerical control (CNC) milling so you can turn your idea into a reality. You heard that Fusion is the complete end-to-end solution, but now you'll have the opportunity to experience it in action, guided by a team of experts. If you're curious about Fusion, but have never tried it yourself, this beginner-friendly lab is for you!

Discover how to seamlessly integrate ideation powered by artificial intelligence (AI) into your Autodesk Fusion 360 design workflow. This session will explore a dynamic, iterative process using generative AI platforms like Vizcom and GPT-4o to rapidly generate, refine, and visualize diverse form variations directly from your Fusion 360 models. Learn practical methods for exporting your designs, using AI-driven form exploration, and then effectively reimporting enhanced concepts back into Fusion 360 for further refinement. Unlock greater creativity, accelerate your iteration cycles, and elevate your design innovation by strategically combining Autodesk’s powerful CAD capabilities with advanced AI tools.

When friends reminisce about the 70s, 80s, and 90s, receiving a musical greeting card for their birthdays was truly a joyful experience. Gently unfolding the paper card to hear the Happy Birthday song was a simple yet delightful pleasure. Even after the birthday, revisiting the heartfelt wishes written by friends while listening to the melody brought back cherished memories, often accompanied by a smile. These moments are among the beautiful memories of that era. Inspired by these nostalgic thoughts, why not create a DIY mini rabbit bell and bring it back to home to share with others about the special moment from Autodesk University? Fusion is excellent for seamless integration of MCAD and ECAD. In this 90-minute class, you will craft your very own Rabbit Bell from scratch using Fusion. You could bring one Rabbit Bell PCB board back to home.

Join us for the first-ever “Research Reveals!” Design & Make game show. It's the designers versus the makers: architects versus engineers; product designers versus manufacturers; creatives versus producers. Based on the classic game show “Family Feud,” this fast-paced theater session brings industry experts together to test their knowledge of the latest State of Design & Make report. They’ll need to be fast on the buzzer to compete. Who will win this ultimate, live throwdown? Find out when we play “Research Reveals!”

Informed Design is changing how we think about construction by connecting design, fabrication, and performance to deliver smarter, more efficient, and more sustainable outcomes. Built on the principles of outcome-based BIM, it shifts the focus from drawings to results, ensuring what is designed can be accurately fabricated and effectively delivered. This class will explore how tools like Revit and Inventor software enable early coordination and support modular construction, with a focus on prefabricated frames. Whether you’re in design, engineering, or delivery, you’ll learn how Informed Design reduces rework, improves buildability, enhances Sustainable Design, and sets projects up for success. At A.G. Coombs, we’re preparing to apply this approach within a whole-of-life framework, drawing on our downstream expertise to help close the loop between design and long-term performance. Join us to see how Informed Design can add value to your projects now and into the future.