Fast Future

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The car of the future — the one that runs on water or gets 100 miles to a gallon of gasoline — may well be designed by students who are currently sharpening their engineering skills in PLM (Product Life Management) labs on HP workstations donated to their universities by HP through a corporate alliance known as PACE.

Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education (PACE) was formed in 1999 by General Motors Corp., EDS, Sun Microsystems Inc. and UGS to enhance engineering, science and art curricula for students in the automotive, technology and engineering fields. PACE provides hardware, software, training, automotive parts and industry projects to PLM labs in 33 institutions in nine countries.

HP is a big believer in the PACE program, says Jim Zafarana, vice president, Worldwide Marketing for the Workstation Global Business Unit, HP. "It's extremely important for today's talented students to have the same tools that industry uses. HP has a longstanding relationship with GM and UGS, and we're pleased to join them in helping prepare engineers and designers to succeed in the rapidly evolving engineering environment of the future."

Through PACE, HP donates 100 new HP workstations and four HP Designjet 110plus nr large format printers to PACE universities each year and pays refurbishing and shipping charges on used HP workstations donated by the alliance's founding partners.

Better-qualified graduates

Students from Michigan State University and Virginia Tech are among those using HP workstations as part of the PACE program.

Michigan State University (MSU) uses its HP xw4200 Workstations in an advanced Computer Aided Design (CAD) class. "Modern engineering just can't happen without the tools provided by the PACE program," says Bob Chalou, Academic Specialist at MSU. "They help us produce better qualified entry-level engineers." Chalou and his students are particularly impressed with the ability of the HP workstations to handle demanding graphics chores. "They don't get bogged down when we do photo-realistic rendering," he notes.

The College for Creative Studies (CCS) in Detroit, Michigan, has used PACE contributions to upgrade the Industrial Design Department's computer facility. Using HP workstations running Alias AutoStudio and other digital tools, along with an HP Designjet printer, advanced students can design airplanes, hybrid vehicles and biomedical devices. "The HP products we received through the PACE program let our students focus on developing design competencies instead of fighting balky, older technology," says CCS President Robert L. Rogers.

HP products also facilitate collaborative projects in which students and faculty work directly with technical experts from GM, EDS, Sun and UGS to solve real-life industrial challenges. Virginia Tech is the hub for two such projects. The first, directed by faculty from four PACE universities, has students adapting a late-model GM car for sale in three different countries. In a second project, students from eight countries are collaborating to design a totally new vehicle. Both projects require the extensive use in PLM labs of collaborative applications such as NetMeeting, Skype, Teamcenter Engineering and Teamcenter Community running on HP workstations.

"These projects give students experience with real-world situations," says Dr. Jan Helge Bøhn, director of the Virginia Tech CAD Laboratory. "The PACE initiative, including HP's contribution, gives us all stronger science and engineering curricula."