Thursday, September 18, 2008

Mass. enters DOE-backed design challenge using PTC software

By Mass High Tech Staff

The office of Lt. Governor Timothy Murray announced today Massachusetts’ participation in the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Real World Design Challenge,” a partnership program aimed at enhancing science, technology, engineering and mathematics education in high schools.

The program, which is expected to begin in October, is based on a far-reaching partnership involving the governor’s office of select states, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Needham-based Parametric Technology Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Business Educational Partnerships Group, Mentor Graphics (formerly Flomerics Inc.), Education Development Center, MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts NASA Space Grant, and others.

Originally announced by the Department of Energy in July, the program is set up as a competition among teams in each participating state, and later on a national level. The program will present one industry challenge to student teams per year and give those teams and teachers access to industry-related software and mentors to help apply classroom principles to solve real world problems.

As part of the challenge, each participating teacher receives licenses of industry-leading engineering software, valued at nearly $1 million, to use with their students, according to Murray’s office.

This is the competition’s first year and will focus on aeronautics and energy usage. The competition will be limited to 10 states, including Massachusetts and Vermont, which announced its participation in July. The challenge will be issued in October, and the deadline for submissions is March 1, 2009. The winning team from each state will receive an all-expenses paid trip to Washington, D.C. to participate at the national event in April, 2009.

PTC (Nasdaq: PMTC) will provide licences for its Pro/ENGINEER and Windchill software to all participating schools. Pro/ENGINEER is a digital product design platform, while Windchill allows for the management of product content and business process throughout the design process.