2009 PTC Announcement

[PTC_FRC]

FIRST is pleased to announce that PTC, The Product Development Company, is expanding its sponsorship in this year’s FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC).

PTC’s Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, including Pro/ENGINEER, Windchill, and Mathcad, are the tools engineers use everyday to do their jobs. As a Crown Level Supplier to FIRST and the FRC program, PTC is offering these solutions to help students design their robots and, through which, FIRST students can learn the language of engineering. The following software products are available to each and every registered 2009 FRC team!!!

Pro/ENGINEER - FIRST teams will have access to Pro/ENGINEER, PTC’s integrated 3D CAD/CAM/CAE software. Pro/ENGINEER is the standard in 3D product design, featuring industry-leading productivity tools that promote best practices in design while ensuring compliance with industry and company standards. Pro/ENGINEER enables students to detail the form, fit, and function of their robot.

With Pro/ENGINEER, high-fidelity digital models have full associativity, so that as your robot design changes during the build season, those changes will be reflected in your drawings and assembly automatically. Used by 15,000 high schools and 1,451 colleges and universities, Pro/ENGINEER offers an intuitive user interface making it easy to learn and use. For many years, FRC teams have used Pro/ENGINEER as part of their high school curriculum.

Windchill – Through its understanding of structured information such as CAD files, engineering calculations, and technical documentation, Windchill helps teams to work concurrently together or virtually from home. You can find the right files, and share product development data during the build season.

Windchill supports CAD authoring tools such as Pro/ENGINEER, Autodesk Inventor, AutoCAD, and Solidworks. Windchill also includes robust visualization capabilities, and provides a secure environment for project management and execution.

Windchill facilitates collaboration with web-based workspaces, alerts, discussion forums, and Microsoft Office integration. Hosted by PTC, web-based Windchill is easily accessible through a Web-browser.

Finally, Windchill can manage your entire project including fundraising, marketing, and finance information. Last year, over 300 teams signed up to use Windchill.

Start your FRC project now and get familiar with the capabilities that will allow you to plan, manage, share, and get the most out of FRC team information during the fast-paced build season.

Mathcad - Mathcad, PTC’s engineering calculation software, is used to perform, document, and share calculation and design work. The unique Mathcad visual format and easy-to-use whiteboard interface integrates standard mathematical notation, text, and graphs into a single worksheet making Mathcad ideal for knowledge capture, calculation reuse, and engineering collaboration. Mathcad lets teams work with interactive designs to capture the critical methods and values behind each of their robot designs.

Mathcad simplifies and streamlines documentation by combining equations, text, and graphics in a single worksheet. Mathcad makes it easy to keep track of the most complex calculations. Last year, teams used Mathcad to help them with key calculations during the build season to predict the behavior of their robot.

Lastly, PTC has created a dedicated web-page containing various information to aid teams in getting started using the PTC solutions for their robot design. You will find recorded product demos to learn more about the use of our products and how they can help enhance your design and collaboration for your team in this year’s FRC Competition! This page can be accessed from the project OR from www.ptc.com/go/firstgettingstarted.

How to register for the software:

Registration is easy. Your team's main contact will register at www.ptc.com/go/frcregistration Once registered, he/she will have the ability to create their team project or projects. In addition, the main contact will become the project manager and manage member access to the team project.

From the project, team members will download the Pro/ENGINEER Schools Edition, for Integrated CAD/CAM/CAE and Mathcad Student Edition for engineering calculations.

For Questions and Technical Support please email: firstsupport@ptc.com

Go Teams!