**To better serve our network, we've changed our email address to productsupport@pltw.org for product orders and questions. Please use this email address when you have questions or issues regarding the ordering of products.**

Introduction

The PLTW curriculum is provided without charge to schools within the PLTW Network; however, there are required equipment, supply, hardware, software and professional development expenses. The PLTW Purchasing Manual is available to help schools order the items required to run a PLTW program.

See Purchasing Manual Terminology and Abbreviations for an explanation of our terminology and abbreviations.

Given the breadth of courses and equipment and the varying numbers of students and number of class sections, ordering materials for a PLTW classroom can be complex.  To assist schools with the ordering process, PLTW has created the Purchasing Manual which is comprised of Program Inventory and Supplier Workbooks for BMS, GTT and PTE. This manual will help schools with ordering equipment, materials and software for PLTW courses.

Steps to Ordering:

1)   Read the Instructions & watch the Purchasing Manual Tutorial **NEW**
2)   Determine the following:
        a. PLTW courses/units being implemented.
        b. Number of sections offered per course/unit.
        c. Maximum number of students per section.
        d. Equipment platform being used (VEX or FT)
            **FT equipment is available exclusively to schools that have previously purchased FT equipment for POE, DE, CIM, AE, or the middle school GTT program. All other schools must purchase VEX equipment. Current PLTW schools may continue using FT equipment for their current courses indefinitely; however, FT equipment will no longer be available for purchase through PLTW after the 2013-14 school year.**                   
3)    Download the appropriate Program Inventory Workbook    
        a. There is (1) Program Inventory Workbook for each PLTW course/unit: High School BMS, Middle School GTT and High School ENGR which include required items seperated by course/unit.)
4)    Using the Program Inventory Workbook, determine which items you already have on hand and will not need to purchase.
5)    Download the appropriate Supplier Workbook
        a. There is (1) supplier workbook for each PLTW course/unit: High School BMS, Middle School GTT, and High School ENGR)
6)    Order Equipment and Supplies (please click here for ordering instructions for items ordered through PLTW)
7)    Order/Download Software (please see the Software Table located in the Additional Resources section)

         **Please note that RobotC® can now be ordered on the Software License Order Form page**

The following reminders are a summary of our instructions; however, we strongly recommend you read the full document: 

Reminders:

•    Allow 6 to 8 weeks for delivery, unless otherwise noted.
•    In the Program Inventory Workbook, those items labeled “PLTW” in the Supplier column (“Splr”) are ordered through PLTW. All other items require separate purchase orders through the listed supplier. For your convenience, there are templates in the supplier workbooks to assist with these orders.
•    If “Any Local Supplier” is listed in the “Splr” column, schools can purchase these items from the supplier of their choice.
•    Pay close attention to order times in the BMS workbook, and for BE (in the ENGR workbook). Some items are perishable and/or require culture growth.
•    Optional equipment is just that – optional. 

Instructions:

The instructions, located below, will guide you through the Program Inventory and Supplier Workbooks to help determine the items you will need to order for your PLTW course(s).

2012-13 Course Specific Updates

For all courses, every year, the list of required items is subject to change due to product availability, supplier updates, curriculum updates etc.; therefore, it is important to review the most current version of the Purchasing Manual. For the 2012-13 school year, the following changes have been made:

• High School Engineering
  • IED - The IED curriculum is going through a targeted enhancement this year. Please make sure you do an inventory of the IED tab in the ENGR Workbook to ensure you have all the equipment and supplies needed. The enhanced curriculum will be available to all teachers in June.
• High School Biomedical Sciences
  • PBS is currently being revised and updated. The revised curriculum will be field tested with a select group of teachers during the 2012-2013 school year and released to the entire network for the 2013-2014 school year. Some equipment and supplies will no longer be used in the revised course. In order to ensure that schools do not invest in items that will be discontinued in the future, some items have been removed from the current BMS Workbook. The 2012-2013 curriculum network release reflects these changes.

2012-13 Workbooks

The Excel files below contain all required items for your PLTW courses/units.

Additional Resources

As resources are made available to assist schools in the purchasing process, they will be posted here. Please contact us with any thoughts, concerns or questions by email at productsupport@pltw.org.