PTC's Support for FIRST® Is Cornerstone Of Corporate Social Responsibility Program

Online, January 6, 2012 (Newswire.com) - Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi-Answering the call to promote science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) educational opportunities, PTC (Nasdaq: PMTC), The Product Development Company®, today announced its continued support of FIRST ® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) and the FIRST ® Robotics Competition (FRC®). Building on previous years of support, PTC will sponsor over 85 FRC teams, 23 FIRST® Tech Challenge (FTC®) teams, and 14 FIRST® LEGO® League teams during the current 2011-2012 season.

Jim Heppelmann, president and CEO, PTC will speak at the 2012 FRC Kickoff event on January 7 where this year's FRC game will be unveiled during a live broadcast to tens of thousands of worldwide participants on NASA TV 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time.

"PTC is a fantastic Strategic Partner of FIRST. As a company, they are fully committed to the values of FIRST and share our goal of helping students develop skills to become tomorrow's innovators and engineers," said Jon Dudas, president, FIRST. "PTC provides the same CAD and Collaboration software for students used by more than 27,000 global manufacturing companies, allowing students to develop the engineering skills that are in high demand."

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 a Strategic Partner to FIRST, PTC provides free software, including Creo®, Mathcad® and Windchill®, to all participating FIRST teams. Offering Windchill in the cloud to FIRST FRC and FTC teams since 2008 has allowed thousands of students to collaborate on their designs anytime, anywhere.

"The robot and the game are complicated, which requires The Buchanan Bird Brains, Team #1671, to put in place a real-world design and collaboration process in order to create a product under the pressure of time and competition. PTC and FIRST create an experience for the students on this team to develop life-long skills that are critical for their success," said Paul Lake, FIRST Robotics Coach, Buchanan High School.

"The design and build timeframe for the 2012 FRC season is a fast-paced six weeks," said Robin Saitz, SVP, solutions marketing & communications and FIRST Executive Sponsor, PTC. "These six weeks provide some of the most intense, valuable training for these students as they learn how to work together as a team to deliver a functional robot for competition. PTC is a proud, strong supporter of FIRST because we consider FIRST to be one of the best investments we can make in the future."

FRC teams sponsored by PTC include:

The Buchanan Bird Brains, #1671
Buchanan High School
Clovis, CA
http://www.brt1671.com/2012/index.php
Chicago Knights, #1739
City-wide high school participants
Chicago, IL
http://www.chicagoknights1739.org/

Holland Chaos, #74
Holland High School
Holland, MI
http://www.hollandchaos.com/
King TeC, #2169
Prior Lake High School
Prior Lake, MN
http://kingtec2169.com/

Mechanical Mayhem, #1519
Milford Area Youth Homeschoolers
Milford, NH
http://mechanicalmayhem.org/
Rosie Robotics, #839
Agawan High School
Agawan, MA
http://rosie.agawamrobotics.org/

FTC teams sponsored by PTC include:

The Bounty Hunters, #2864
St. Clare's School
Staten Island, NY
https://sites.google.com/a/stclaresi.com/science-enrichment-programs/staten-island-robotics/ftc---high-school-1
Metal Menace, #760
LAUNCH Robotics
Broomfield, CO

Milton Wildcats, #5090
Milton High School
Milton, MA Minotaur, #1369
Middleton High School
Middleton, FL
http://middletonrobotics.com/?page_id=6

Watt the Hex, #4311
Say Watt Robotics
Edison, NJ
http://watt-the-hex.org/

Additional Resources
• Community Relations - Inspiring the Next Generation of Engineers (web site)
• PTC and FIRST (web site)

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 $14 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 to www.usfirst.org.

About PTC (http://www.ptc.com)
PTC (Nasdaq: PMTC) 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. More information can be found at www.ptc.com.