Paul Haimes
As education facilities break up for summer, it’s time for educators to recuperate and re-plan for the new academic year.
Paul Haimes
The opportunity to learn and grow through education is an incredible part of your life. And perhaps one that lasts a lifetime with constant knowledge building and the want to learn. Here at PTC, we realise how important the educational journey is, and that today’s students will be the engineers of tomorrow. It’s important to us, and to future employees, that they’re equipped with the knowledge of first-class technology during their education, technology that will enable them to hit the ground running once they start their careers.
Paul Haimes
With me today on this education special episode is someone who knows all too well the value of education, Jordan Cox. Jordan has spent the last 30 years working in industry, alongside teaching in academia. He also heads up PTC’s education segment.
Paul Haimes
Jordan, I recently read that the US alone could be facing a shortfall of more than six million engineers. And if you couple that with companies wanting to reshore their manufacturing, it looks like we aren’t churning out enough student engineers. So firstly, why do you think that is, and how does technology play a hand in enticing more students to take up engineering?
Jordan Cox
Well, thanks, Paul. Both of those questions are excellent questions. Let me start out with the first one of why I think that we aren’t turning out enough engineers. First of all, it’s not just an issue with the US, it’s worldwide. We just don’t have enough engineers. A lot of it has to do with two issues. The first issue is that most students don’t even know what engineers are or what they do until they enter university. And it’s too late then because they haven’t really been prepared in math and sciences, so they ended up not being successful. So the first aspect of solving that problem is starting to introduce engineering and the understanding of what engineers do earlier in the educational learning path. The second aspect of it is that I don’t think students are introduced to the technologies of engineering, and really understand how to use those, and how they’re used in industry, to really better human life on the planet.
Paul Haimes
I think those are great points, Jordan. I certainly see that as a company, we do all we can to provide those educational establishments with access to our technologies. And they, in turn, embed some of that into the curricula. But I think it’s challenging on both sides. Challenging for us to keep track of what the university needs, but also for those educational establishments to keep track of how quickly our industry evolves. If you think about just the digital transformation use cases that we talk about today, it’s tough for the universities to keep up to date with all of that.
Jordan Cox
I think you bring up two really important issues. First of all, it’s important for us to provide the latest technologies to universities so that students who are actually studying engineering and technology have those tools and those technologies. So they’re prepared, once they graduate, to move into the workforce. That’s a very important component of PTC’s education programme. But a second aspect of it is to actually move earlier in their education programme into the first grades, up through high school, and introduce those technologies to them. Now, there are two problems with that. One is most of those schools don’t have the technology infrastructure – meaning people who are trained or the necessary hardware to run that technology. And the second issue, and I think this is the biggest issue, is that most of the educators are not really trained or have experience in the STEM topics. Oftentimes, what I see is a school decides to offer a STEM programme. And rather than hiring a person who has the background to be a STEM educator, they pick one of their existing educators and say, “Now you’re the STEM leader.” And we get requests all the time from educators saying, “Gosh, do you have anything to kind of help me get up to speed with these technologies?” So I think that’s a real issue, and maybe it’s an issue where we need to look at trying to prepare them, these educators, when they’re studying education at the university level, to start getting familiar with some of the STEM technologies.
Paul Haimes
And I particularly want to pick up on the first point you made about understanding what the role of an engineer is, and the broad range of engineering roles that exist in industry today. But I think there’s also that issue around role models, people in the public eye that are seen to be doing great things because it has an impact on the environment that we live in. So for example, I think Johnny Yves, who was the head of industrial design at Apple for many, many years, his impact on all of our lives has been huge. And he’s known to many of us that are in the industry. But is he a household name? I’m not quite sure. And I think we need people like him to be put up as role models, as somebody aspirational that will inspire that younger generation of engineers or industrial designers, whatever it may be. People need to see more of those individuals and their contributions to our lives.
Jordan Cox
I totally agree, Paul. Another aspect of this is the fact that, when you work with young children, one of the things that you discover is there is a burning desire in them to help. They want to help, they want to contribute. And so, STEM programmes that really focus on either solving problems in the local community or solving worldwide problems are really important. It’s what gets the students excited because they want to contribute. I think that’s a key element to really getting students excited.
Paul Haimes
So let’s meet somebody who is living proof of what can happen when you inspire young people with careers in engineering and technology. High school graduate Steven Sandhoop, based just outside Dusseldorf in Germany, has developed a surgical robot that can perform knee surgery on its own. An amazing achievement that simulates the world’s first surgery in a classroom.
Steven Sandhoop
My project was to design and construct from scratch a robotic arm which could simulate a surgical operation of the knee. I constructed a robotic arm completely by myself. I had reference from a real robotic arm which is used in surgical operations. I’ve also 3D-printed and modelled an anatomically correct leg on which surgery is simulated. So the robotic arm is completely in right to further emphasise its use in surgical operations. It consists of two axes which are forward-oriented that look like a crane in front of him. And then has big bays, which is like a big plane, which is used to rotate in horizontal directions. At the end of the robotic arm there’s a drill, which is the size between a needle and a scalpel – not as large as a normal-sized screw. To start the robotic arm, you have to plug in the USB cable to the laptop and put the power supply connected to the power outlet. And then you have to start the software.
So the main difference between my robotic arm and the one we can find in hospitals, my one is functioning completely automatically but you can control it through the software on the laptop. And the difference to the hospitals, they are still using assisted robotic arms which are assisting the surgeon. From a project I’ve worked with, a hospital which is in Kleve, a German town, and they gave me financial support, and also a surgeon of the hospital. I have sent him images of what my knee replica looked like. He then responded and gave me advice on how I could make it more anatomically correct.
Our school has made great efforts into enabling our students to have further insight into STEM subjects, and my teacher, who is responsible for our IT infrastructure, has made the effort that we have built a Fab Lab, which stands for fabricating laboratory, with laser cutters, 3D-printers, and all sorts of machines. I was lucky to be at that school to have access to all these kinds of machines, not only being supported for the knowledge of how to use them, but also financially even. I feel really proud of my project because it’s quite a journey throughout the project. I started with little prototypes but I couldn’t believe that I ended up with such complicated and big robot at the end. The project has definitely made me more curious about all the kinds of subjects I had to delve in, from physics to anatomy to mechanics, I think I’ve learned a lot. Also, resilience is a big part of it, that you’re also going through the project and you never give up.
Paul Haimes
Steven Sandhoop there on what a brilliant case for showing how important it is for students to have access to leading technology during their education. Now, Jordan, how is PTC supporting academia in that way?
Jordan Cox
So PTC aims to enable the workforce of the future by providing resources and support for students, educators and academic institutions interested in learning and teaching PTC’s technology and software solutions as part of their STEM programmes. The types of offerings have evolved over the 23 years since PTC first launched its initiative by creating the PTC Education Programme. And offerings now include free and discounted software, original curriculum materials, online courses, certification, and engagement programmes, just to name a few.
Paul Haimes
That’s fantastic. And again, we as a company continue to do all we can to make sure that our technology is fully available to supporting these types of projects for the future.