Needham Company Kicks Off FIRST Tech Challenge

As the school year gets off and running, Newton recently helped launched the 2012-2013 FIRST Tech Challenge, a high school robotics competition.

The New England kick off for this year's game, "Ring it Up", was held Saturday at High School and featured a large group of local students interested in robotics and FIRST robotics teams, according to a press release from Needham-based Parametric Technology Corp. (PTC), one of the sponsors for the FIRST Tech Challenge.

Each year, the FIRST Tech Challenge has a different game, where hundreds of robotics teams from across the country design and build robots to compete against other teams. 

Newton's on FIRST Robotics team, , competes each year in the FIRST Robotics Competition (separate from the FIRST Tech Challenge). The LigerBots is made up of students from both and .  

The following is a press release from Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC) issued on Monday, Sept. 10:

Dedicated to promoting science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) educational opportunities, Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC) today announced its continued support of FIRST ® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) and the FIRST ®Tech Challenge (FTC®). Building on previous years of supporting FIRST, PTC will sponsor 30 of the 2500 FTC teams expected to participate in this year’s competition.

Reaching more than 294,000 students in grades K-12 annually, FIRST has designed accessible, innovative, mentor-based STEM programs. These programs inspire young people to think, design and create something physical using their engineering knowledge and skills.  As the exclusive CAD & Collaboration Sponsor of the FIRST Tech Challenge, PTC provides its Creo® product design software, Mathcad® calculation software and Windchill® collaboration software free to all participating FTC teams.

This year’s FTC game, called RING IT UP!SM, uses a sports model to challenge teams of up to ten high school students to design, build and program a robot to compete in regional competitions.  New England FTC teams, including first time participants from Needham High School in Needham, MA – with both an all-girl and all boy team – gathered at Newton North High School for the unveiling of this year’s competition.

“PTC continues to demonstrate its commitment to the values of FIRST and shares our goal of helping students develop skills to become tomorrow’s leaders in science, technology, and engineering,” said Jon Dudas, president, FIRST.  “Our students use PTC’s product design software, the same software used by more than 27,000 global manufacturing companies, to design their robots. This gives them an excellent opportunity to develop the problem-solving and engineering skills they will use in their careers.”

Co-hosted by PTC, the 2012 FTC Kick-Off event also featured software training and best practices workshops led by PTC’s product development experts and guest speakers from FIRST and PTC, including Robin Saitz, FIRST executive sponsor, PTC.  Saitz was also selected as one of America’s 100 Women Leaders in STEM this year.

“The FIRST Tech Challenge provides some of the most valuable, real-world experience for these high school students as they learn how to work as a team to deliver a functional robot for competition.” said Saitz. “PTC is a proud, strong supporter of FIRST because we consider FIRST to be one of the best investments we can make in educating those that are the future of our industry.”

About FIRST®   
Accomplished inventor Dean Kamen founded FIRST® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) in 1989 to inspire an appreciation of science and technology in young people. Based in Manchester, N.H., FIRST designs accessible, innovative programs to build self-confidence, knowledge, and life skills while motivating young people to pursue opportunities in science, technology, and engineering. With support from three out of every five Fortune 500 companies and nearly $15 million in college scholarships, the not-for-profit organization hosts the FIRST® Robotics Competition (FRC® ) and FIRST® Tech Challenge (FTC® ) for high-school students, FIRST® LEGO® League (FLL® ) for 9 to 14-year-olds, (9 to 16-year-olds outside the U.S., Canada, and Mexico) and Junior FIRST® LEGO® League (Jr.FLL®) for 6 to 9-year-olds. Gracious Professionalism® is a way of doing things that encourages high-quality work, emphasizes the value of others, and respects individuals and the community. To learn more about FIRST, go towww.usfirst.org.  

About PTC

PTC enables manufacturers to achieve maximum value from their product strategies with software and services designed to optimize key business processes throughout the entire product lifecycle – from conception and design to sourcing and service. PTC’s integral solution portfolio enables customers to unleash product innovation, improve collaboration and ensure product data integrity within engineering and across the enterprise, supply chain and service partner networks. Founded in 1985, PTC employs over 6,000 professionals serving more than 27,000 customers worldwide.