CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
14 April 2010
Company News
PTC Expands its Support for 2010 FIRST World Championship in Atlanta
PTC announced that it has expanded its support for the 2010 FIRST ® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Championship in Atlanta, Ga., April 15 - April 17, 2010, co-sponsoring more than 30 teams and celebrating mentors. This brings the total number of PTC-sponsored FIRST teams to more than 100 for the year.
Reaching more than 212,000 students in grades K-12 annually, FIRST has designed accessible, innovative, mentor-based programs that build science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills. These programs inspire young people to pursue STEM education and career opportunities as well as help build self-confidence, knowledge and life skills. PTC is a Crown Supplier to the FIRST® Robotics Competition (FRC®) for the fourth consecutive year and the official CAD and Collaboration Sponsor to the FIRST ® Tech Challenge (FTC®) for the second year, providing free software, including Pro/ENGINEER®, Mathcad®, Windchill® and ProductView®, to participating teams.
"FIRST is aligned with PTC's worldwide education initiative. We are excited to sponsor FIRST because it promotes 21st century skills, focuses on developing the ‘whole student,' and partners with industry and educators to create students with a lifelong interest in science and engineering," said Robin Saitz, senior vice president, solutions marketing and communications and FIRST Executive Sponsor, PTC. "We are impressed by all of the FIRST teams and are proud to be part of a STEM literacy movement that helps to develop a broad and deep pipeline of engineers for the future, meeting both the needs of our customers and industry."
At this year's Championship, PTC's booth in the pit area celebrates FIRST mentors, recognizing the program's 90,000 volunteers who have had the greatest impact on the students. In addition, mentors can visit the PTC booth to capture their most memorable FIRST moments on video and receive a special recognition pin. The PTC showcase within the booth will also allow visitors to learn how their team can use PTC software to quickly build a more competitive robot and communicate more effectively among team members. This is the same software that is used by over 25,000 leading manufacturing companies around the world.
"It's rewarding to realize that our company's investment in these students is helping to feed the pipeline of potential future employees," said Bob Scagni, FRC Team #175 Mentor and Space, Land & Sea Marketing Manager, Hamilton Sundstrand. "This is a great way for us to target new talent and bring these folks into the Hamilton Sundstrand family. We're reaping significant benefits from this program and are thrilled to partner with PTC in this common goal."
Teams sponsored by PTC at the Championship include FRC teams Team 1519 Mechanical Mayhem of New Hampshire, Team 2574 the RoboHuskie of Minnesota, Team 1902 the Exploding Bacon of Florida, Team 2775 Liberty Robotics of Tennessee and Team 2834, the Bionic Barons of Michigan. FTC teams include Team 93 Deep Run High School of Virginia, Team 154 Renegade of Rhode Island and two teams from Chaffee High School (3620 and 3621) of Missouri as well as FLL Team 749 the Newton RoboKnights of Massachusetts.
To learn more about FIRST, go to www.usfirst.org.
Become a member of the CIMdata PLM Community to receive your daily PLM news and much more.
Tell us what you think of the CIMdata Newsletter. Send your feedback.
CIMdata is committed to your privacy. Your personal information will never be sold or shared outside of CIMdata without your express permission.