Jan 4 2013
Continuing with its mission to provide every day opportunities for students to develop engineering skills, PTC, today announced its continued support of FIRST® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) and the FIRST® Robotics Competition (FRC®).
Building on previous years, PTC will support seven regional competitions throughout the United States and Israel in addition to sponsoring 82 FIRST® Robotics Competition (FRC®) teams, 35 FIRST® Tech Challenge (FTC®) teams, and nine FIRST® LEGO® League teams during the 2012-2013 season.
“PTC works very hard to connect FIRST students to mentors not only with its 6,000 employees, but also with their 27,000 global manufacturing customers so that students worldwide can develop the engineering skills that are in high demand from these organizations.”
At the 2013 FRC Kickoff event to be held on Saturday, January 5, PTC is one of two named Kickoff Sponsors. The FRC game will be unveiled during a live broadcast to approximately 52,000 participants worldwide over NASA TV. PTC President and CEO, Jim Heppelmann, will be one of the featured speakers at the Kickoff which begins at 10:30 EDT
“PTC is a Strategic Partner of FIRST and the company is fully committed to the values of FIRST. PTC shares our goal of helping students develop STEM skills,” said Robert Tuttle, Interim President, FIRST. “PTC works very hard to connect FIRST students to mentors not only with its 6,000 employees, but also with their 27,000 global manufacturing customers so that students worldwide can develop the engineering skills that are in high demand from these organizations.”
FIRST reaches an estimated 300,000 students worldwide annually. FIRST designs accessible, innovative, mentor-based STEM programs for K-12. These programs inspire young people to think, design and create something physical using their engineering knowledge and skills. As a Strategic Partner of the FIRST Progression of Programs for K-12, PTC provides free software, including PTC Creo®, PTC Mathcad® and PTC Windchill® to all participating FIRST teams. PTC has offered Windchill in the cloud to FRC and FTC teams since 2008 allowing thousands of students, along with their teachers and professional mentors, to collaborate on their designs anytime, anywhere. This year teams in the FIRST LEGO League and Jr. FIRST LEGO League can also access the software.
“I enjoy working with PTC in reaching out to the students who participate in the FIRST Robotic Competitions,” said Sue Peckham, engineering manager, co-chair of FIRST initiative, BAE Systems. “Helping students understand and apply the same design and collaboration principles used in a manufacturing environment will enable them to better understand the challenges in this fast-paced industry and at BAE Systems’.”
“FIRST is the cornerstone of our community relations program because it delivers value on multiple dimensions,” said Robin Saitz, SVP, solutions marketing & communications and FIRST Executive Sponsor, PTC. “FIRST is one of the best investments PTC can make because it highlights the benefits of integrating real-world technology into education by inspiring young people to pursue STEM disciplines in college. This will ultimately build a global workforce of engineers, which will help our customers achieve and maintain a competitive advantage.”