Oct 16 2013
PTC recently joined more than 45 partners to kick-off the 2013-2014 Real World Design Challenge. The theme of this year’s challenge, “Unmanned Aircraft System Challenge: Precision Agriculture,” was announced in Washington, DC. A $50,000 scholarship from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University will be provided to each student on the national winning team.
Shared Value is a corporate social responsibility initiative at PTC where the company gets involved with programs like the Real World Design Challenge in order to build stronger communities which can result in a better workforce for other companies that require engineers. These programs make science and technology exciting for participants, encourages interest in these fields, and helps build excitement for the engineers of the future.
The Real World Design Challenge (RWDC) is an annual competition that provides more than 5,000 high school students, grades 9-12, the opportunity to work on real world engineering challenges in a team environment. PTC and its partners, including Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and the Aerospace States Association, are focused on transforming and enhancing STEM education in the American educational system by providing science, engineering and learning resources that allow students and teachers to address an actual challenge confronting one of the nation's most important industries.
Students that participate in the 2013-2014 Real World Design Challenge will focus on the design and implementation of an Unmanned Aircraft System to support precision agriculture, specifically to monitor and assess crop conditions to achieve increased yield. Teams will employ a systems engineering design and integration approach to identify, compare, analyze, demonstrate and defend the most appropriate component combinations, subsystem designs, operational methods and business case to support the challenge scenario.
“This competition offers a broad base of resources and expertise from business, government and academia to help students apply the lessons of the classroom to the technical problems being faced in the workplace,” said John Stuart, senior vice president, global academic program, PTC. “Teams are encouraged to think like engineers and scientists while also developing the problem solving skills they will use in their careers. PTC is proud to be part of the Real World Design Challenge.”
The winning teams from the participating states will be notified in April and will receive an all-expense paid trip to Washington, D.C. to compete at the National Challenge Event in November 2014.
PTC provides commercial-grade product development software, including PTC Creo® 3D product design software, PTC Windchill® product lifecycle management software and PTC Mathcad® engineering calculation software, to teams participating in the Real World Design Challenge. PTC also provides connections and access to mentors from its partner organizations across America who are participants in the competition or program management for the competition.
To register a team or to sign up as a mentor go to the Real World Design Challenge website www.realworlddesignchallenge.org. The deadline for teams to register for the Real World Design Challenge is December 20, 2013. The solution submissions are due March 31, 2014.