MasterGraphics Pledges $15,000 in Scholarship Donations

MADISON, Wis. MasterGraphics, design process experts and leading Midwest supplier of design data solutions for the manufacturing, building and civil engineering industries, has pledged to donate a total of $15,000 at seven area student competitions.

The scholarship donations, which are made possible through the assistance of Autodesk, include:

* Skills USA MN competition - $2,500
April 9-11, Sheraton Hotel, Bloomington, Minn.
* Skills USA IL competition - $1,000
April 15-17, Prairie Capital Convention Center, Springfield, Ill.
* Illinois Drafting Educators Association competition - $3,000
April 18, Illinois State University, Normal, Ill.
* Skills USA WI competition - $2,500
Apr. 27-28, Chula Vista, Wisconsin Dells, Wis.
* Minnesota Technology Challenge - $1,000
May 3, Hennepin Technical College, Eden Prairie, Minn.
* Minnesota Supermileage competition - $2,500
May 17-18, Brainerd International Raceway, Brainerd, Minn.
* Wisconsin Supermileage competitions - $2,500
April 16-17, University of Wisconsin - Stout, Menomonie, Wis.
April 30-May 1, Fox Valley Technical College, Appleton, Wis.
May 9-10, Road America, Elkhart Lake, Wis.

Strengthening tomorrow's workforce through today's education, the competitions give middle- and high-school students in Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin the opportunity to explore careers and talents in engineering and design through a real-world hands-on challenge - designing, building and testing a fully-functional fuel efficient vehicle.

MasterGraphics and Autodesk are committed to inspiring the next generation of innovators through the support of Project Lead the Way (PLTW), a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of pre-engineering instruction for middle- and high-school students. Participating schools place an emphasis on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education with dynamic pre-engineering courses that employ rigorous project-based curricula. More than 500,000 students at nearly 3,500 schools have taken part in PLTW classes. PLTW hopes to reach more than 1,000,000 students each year by growing to 10,000 implementations by the 2015-16 school year.