2009 National Engineers Week Future City Competition

Sponsored by the nation’s professional engineering community, Future City aims to stir interest in science, technology, engineering, and math among young people. Students must conduct research for an essay on a pressing social need. The teams focused on ways to improve water use by creating a home system that minimizes the use of municipal or externally supplied water for its daily requirements.

Students work in teams under the guidance of a teacher and a volunteer engineer mentor to design and build a city for tomorrow. They create cities on computers using the SimCity 4 Deluxe software and then build three-dimensional, tabletop models to scale. To ensure a level playing field, models must use recycled materials and can cost no more than $100 to build. Students also write brief abstracts describing their city and must present and defend their designs at the competition before a panel of judges from the engineering field who test the depth of the teams’ knowledge.

“Part of our responsibility as industry leaders lies in developing the talented and diverse workforce who will be designing the world’s infrastructure in the future,” said Greg Bentley, CEO, Bentley Systems. “Bentley’s long standing sponsorship of National Engineers Week Future City Competition is part of our corporate mission of ‘Sustaining Infrastructure,’ and in particular, sustaining the professions that design and build the world’s infrastructure, which, now more than ever, is seen as essential to sustaining both our economy and our environment. The creativity, teamwork, and commitment of these young minds are a valuable and renewable resource, and Bentley is proud to do its part to develop this resource by opening the eyes of these middle school students to the rewarding possibilities of a career in engineering.”

Wyatt Peery, a student from the grand-prize winning team, said, “Our focus was to build a city that citizens would be happy to live in. We wanted to create a place with a true sense of community – like our own home town of Bexley, a suburb of Columbus.”

“We learned that engineering is more than just making sure that buildings work the way they are supposed to,” added teammate Tom Krajnak. “Engineers are involved in every aspect of building a city. We discovered how necessary they are and now we know the reasons why.”

St. Thomas More School in Baton Rouge, La., won second-place honors for their Future City, entitled Esperyance. The team comprised students Maggie Talbot and Annie Talbot, 13, and Tyler Bellue, 14, and their teacher Shirley Newman and mentor Ricky Lee of SEMS, Inc. St. Thomas More School received a $5,000 scholarship for its technology program, sponsored by the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE).

St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic School in South Miami, Florida, took third-place honors for their Future City, entitled Vai Verde. The team comprised Lauren Rodriguez, 14, Susana Becerra, 14, and Nicole Fernandez-Valle, 12, teacher Susy Chu and mentor Maria Fernandez-Porrata of Marlin Engineering Inc. St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic School received a $2,000 scholarship for that school’s technology program, sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), USA.

Gates Intermediate School in Scituate, Massachusetts, won fourth place while McLean Middle School in Ft. Worth, Texas, took fifth place.