National youth program delivers STEM learning opportunities that inspire students to pursue engineering careers

NEEDHAM, Mass. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — March 6, 2012 — PTC^® (Nasdaq: PMTC) announced today it is continuing its support of the United States Department of Defense-sponsored STARBASE national youth program to deliver STEM learning opportunities to students in Georgia, Michigan and Minnesota. The program’s goal is to motivate young people to pursue science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education and careers.

Since its inception in 1989, the DoD STARBASE program has introduced 3-D engineering design and manufacturing using PTC software to over 610,000 students across 75 locations in the United States and expects an additional 70,000 students to participate in 2012. The program provides students with 20-25 hours of real world STEM experiences. The program is a hands-on, minds-on inquiry based curriculum that encourages teamwork through challenging activities.

STARBASE Robins Program, Robins Air Force Base, Georgia. The Houston County Board of Education believes a vibrant engineering and technical education is beneficial to civic, economic and intellectual activity for its county and its state. “In order for our students to succeed and address the challenges of the workforce, we have to better prepare them with curriculum and programs that encourage critical thinking,” said Barbara Wall, director of career, technical and agricultural education, Houston County Board of Education. “PTC provides the software and technology to learn design and engineering skills and STARBASE gives us the program to apply the concepts in a real world scenario.”

STARBASE One Program, Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Michigan. Students who attend the classes at STARBASE One experience a leading edge curriculum which incorporates physics, chemistry, technology, engineering, math and STEM careers. STARBASE One offers a first class facility that includes workstations equipped with PTC software for modeling, a space exploration lab module, a full scale space shuttle simulator and a Mars room which gives students the chance to manipulate robotic systems. The children recently had the opportunity to design and assemble a space shuttle flashlight using PTC software in a Design and Stratasys Dimension 3D Printers for Manufacturing class.

“This is a great example of how students can apply math and science skills to develop something that can be used by consumers,” said Barbara Koscak, Co-founder of STARBASE. “Engineering is an important part of our country’s hopeful future, and I’m glad to part of this incredible program.”

“PTC is proud to be part of a technology movement that seeks to bridge the gap between school and industry in order to encourage more STEM-related careers,” said Adam Haas, STARBASE program manager, PTC. “Together with our customers like Michigan-based General Dynamics, we will continue to develop a new generation of students that will have the technical knowledge and skills to work for companies like it across all industries around the globe.” General Dynamics continues to support the Michigan programs by providing laptops for computer activities.

STARBASE Minnesota, Minnesota Air National Guard Base, St. Paul, Minnesota. “PTC has been a long time advocate of STEM programs through its support of initiatives like the FIRST robotics programs and now STARBASE,” said Kevin Tanner, vice president North America technical sales, PTC. “We have a large, state-of-the-art research and development center in Blaine, Minnesota with hundreds of the brightest and most innovative software developers. We are proud to host students from all over Minnesota for training and mentoring, and the opportunity to build stronger STEM programs in the communities across our state.”

About STARBASE

STARBASE is a Department of Defense program that serves young people in communities across the country by offering students an opportunity to participate in a variety of hands-on learning experiences designed to increase interest in and knowledge of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). You can visit their website at www.dodstarbase.org.

Additional Resources

• PTC’s Academic Program (web site)
• PTC and Real World Design Challenge (web site)
• PTC’s Community Relations Programs (web site)
• PTC and FIRST (web site)

About PTC

PTC (Nasdaq: PMTC) enables manufacturers to achieve maximum value from their product strategies with software and services that optimize key business processes throughout the entire product lifecycle – from conception and design to sourcing and service. The company’s integral solution portfolio unleashes product innovation, improves collaboration and ensures product data integrity within engineering and across the enterprise, supply chain and service partner networks. Founded in 1985, PTC employs nearly 6,000 professionals serving more than 27,000 customers worldwide. More information can be found at www.ptc.com .