**FIRST EMAIL**/FIRST Announces 2011 PTC Sponsorship for FRC Teams!

[Mark McLeod]

Greetings Teams:

We are pleased to share with you the following announcement from PTC, The Product Development Company®, regarding this season’s software and Kickoff sponsorship!

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PTC (www.ptc.com), The Product Development Company® and a Crown Supplier to the FIRST® Robotics Competition (FRC®), is pleased to announce that once again it will sponsor this season’s Kickoff, and teams with software.

The following software products are available for FREE to each and every FRC team!

• Creo Elements/Pro (formerly called Pro/ENGINEER), PTC’s integrated 3D CAD/CAM/CAE software
• Mathcad, PTC’s Engineering Calculation software
• Windchill, PTC’s Collaboration and Data Management software
• Creo Elements/View (formerly called Productview), PTC’s Visual Collaboration software

PTC is offering these solutions to help students design their robots and collaborate more effectively as a team. By doing so, PTC is supporting the mission of FIRST and encouraging the next generation of technological thinkers to gain access to technology education and innovative skills for the future.

Visit the FIRST Getting Started guide to learn more about the software and how to access it.

Creo Announcement
On October 28, 2010, we launched Creo,TM a new family of design software, built to solve chronic problems that have long plagued companies that use CAD software. We are also announcing the rebranding of our existing, market-leading products, including Pro/ENGINEER. In order to unify the exciting future of design software with the existing elements from which Creo was derived, the existing brands will have new names: Pro/ENGINEER has been renamed Creo Elements/Pro and Productview has been renamed Creo Elements/View. There is no name change to Windchill or Mathcad.

For this season, there is no impact on the software you use, with the exception of a name change. For next season, we are expecting that the Creo technologies will be available to all FIRST teams.

Lastly, please take 2 minutes to complete the following survey, and you will be entered into a random drawing for an Apple I Touch: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/first_teamsurvey

Please contact our FIRST support team at firstsupport@ptc.com with any questions.

Good luck this season!