FIRST: PTC Invests in the Future of Engineering

By GEOFF HEDGES | Published: NOV 11, 2011

Our flagship education program at PTC is FIRST(For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology),  www.usfirst.org , a program used throughout the US and abroad to inspire kids to engage in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).  Every year, more than 150,000 students, kindergarten to 12th grade, work in teams to participate in design challenges using Legos or, for those in high school, building operational robots.  The teams work with mentors, coaches, volunteers … and PTC software.

This year, more than 1,000 FIRST teams (out of a possible 4,500 FIRST Tech Challengeand FIRST Robotics Competition teams ) will use Creo, Mathcad and Windchill to design, build, compete and iterate with their robot design.  Besides supplying the software, we also sponsor teams and regional events, fund scholarships, and provide training materials.

PTC has also partnered with FIRST to bring FIRST overseas.  PTC employees in China, India, Romania, France, Germany, Singapore and the Netherlands have been very supportive of bringing this to their country.

It’s a good fit for us, especially when you look at our Global Education Program.  John Stuart, SVP, says in that program we look for opportunities that provide “shared value.” That is, “where everyone involved in our initiative benefits by participating–employers, schools, and students.”

• Employers. Employers, particularly PTC customers, get value from the program as former FIRST students start their first job already skilled in PTC design and engineering software. That’s especially important now as analysts are predicting severe shortages in technology and science graduate in coming years.
• Schools. The thousands of schools participating in FIRST benefit from better opportunities that come with professional software and training.
• Students. FIRST brings value to students by engaging them in STEM. In fact, kids who participate in FIRST are 50% more likely to attend college and twice as likely to major in science or engineering compared to similar students who did not take part in FIRST.

We benefit too. Officially, we’ve sponsored FIRST activities since 2007, growing from no teams to over 1,000 teams using PTC software in just four years! But for years before that our employees have been enthusiastic mentors and coaches for FIRST teams. Why? Simply because there is a lot of joy in watching young people first experience the rapture that brought us all to this field so many years ago.

As a result of PTC’s overall contribution to FIRST, it was announced in April at the FIRSTWorld Championship, that PTC would be elevated to the top partnership level at FIRST“Strategic”.

Learn more about FIRST here. If you prefer to hear about it from celebrities and world leaders, play the video:

Creo Customer: Zenvo Builds World’s First Luxury Supercar

By GEOFF HEDGES | Published: SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

A lot of people dream of owning an expensive sports car. But I think readers of this blog are different. I think many here dream of designing an expensive sports car! Maybe you made sketches or carved models of your dream car in high school. Maybe, for some, that dream led to a career in product design. Maybe that dream is the reason you’re here reading about design software right now!

Creo Parametric user, Troels Vollertsen, took the dream farther. Vollertsen is CTO and co-founder of Zenvo Automotive, a Danish company that has spent the past seven years designing and prototyping just one car–the Zenvo ST1 supercar.

The ST1 has a supercharged V8 and accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 3 seconds. It reaches speeds of 375 km/h (233 mph), but also runs quieter than any car in its rarefied class.

“If you own a supercar and are driving along in Dubai or in Abu Dhabi and you hit traffic, you need to be able to drive quietly at five km/h too,” says Vollertsen.

Zenvo made sure its car was comfortable and easy to drive as well. (Many supercars are not.) “My mother should be able to get in, and without any instruction, drive the car and totally succeed,” says Vollertsen.

Combine that ease of use with the power of race car and you get the car of Vollertsen’s dreams, the first luxury supercar on the market.

Zenvo plans to make 15 cars available, each with a sticker price of €850,000 ($1,170,000 US).

Image By Zenvo Automotive 

New Creo e-book tells all. Or does it?

By Geoff Hedges | Published: February 7, 2011

 

 

The Creo vision, announced last October, introduced a good deal of change for PTC products. Along with that change came some confusion and a number of questions. People wanted to know, for example, what all this “vision” would mean to the software they rely on each day.

That’s why we’ve published Exploring the Evolution of Creo. This brief e-book spells out exactly what you can expect for 2011. Want to know what apps we plan to release? How Creo Elements/View (formerly ProductView) will evolve? How data migration from Creo Elements/Direct (formerly CoCreate Modeling) will play out? It’s all there. Bookmark and share the e-book for a quick overview of our 2011 plans.

Still have questions?

We’ve used the pages of this blog to try to answer your questions, and we’ll continue to do that here. But at the same time, we don’t expect we’ve divined all your concerns. So, talk to us. Does the Creo vision make sense? Got a burning question? Want to make a point?

Let us know. We welcome your comments below.