[Jon Jack]

Our school (High Tech High - San Diego) uses the PTLW curriculum. They offer POE for Juniors and EDD (Engineering Design and Development) for Seniors. Every student at our school must take a semester of POE in order to graduate.

As for the question of how to integrate FIRST and PLTW:

Every Senior member of Team 1538 that takes EDD (which at our school is a two-hour long class after lunch) works on FIRST or something that can be FIRST related.

During the pre-season students work on prototyping parts and up keeping tools and machinery. For example, one student developed a custom 2-Speed Transmission and gear box.

During the build season students work on designing and building our robot. Everything on our robot this year is custom except for the motors and wheels and it was all designed, machined/fabricated and built by students.

During the post-season students work on designing and prototyping parts and building the field for Battle at the Border.