“The project has definitely made me more curious about all the kinds of subjects I had to delve
into for the project… also resilience, I think, is a big part of it.“
Education is vital for inspiring the engineers of tomorrow. In this special episode of the podcast
we ask: are we encouraging enough young people to go into engineering to meet the demand
for innovation? We speak to Jordan Cox from PTC’s Education segment about the importance
of inspiring the next generation to study STEM subjects, and how the company is supporting
academia in creating the engineers of the future.
We also head to Germany to meet Steve Sandhoop, a high school student at the Gymnasium in
den Filder Benden, who is living proof that giving students access to technology to get involved
in engineering can yield great results. Steve created a robot arm designed to carry out knee
surgery as part of his final project at school. Not content with just building the robot, he also
created an accurate life-size model of a human knee for it to operate on. He 3D printed all parts
of his robot arm and the model knee in the school “fab lab” (short for fabrication lab) and
consulted with a surgeon to make the model anatomically correct. Steve designed the robotic
arm in PTC’s Onshape CAD software.
We hear about how the project has ignited an interest in engineering and software for Steve and
how vital it was for him to have the tools and support provided for him by his school.
