ASME presents special 'best' award at Future City finals in Washington

Benedict Bahner
ASME NEWS

Teams from 33 schools across the United States — the winners of their respective regional competitions in January — exhibited model futuristic cities that they built from scratch during the Future City Competition finals, which were held during National Engineers Week in Washington, D.C.

For the contest, seventh- and eighth-grade students are asked to create computer and large 3-D models of a city of tomorrow. More than 1,100 schools and 30,000 students participated in the not-for-profit educational program this year.

ASME sponsored a Special Award at the Future City Competition National Finals, which took place from Feb. 23-25. The ASME award for "Best Futuristic City" was given to a team of students from Harding Middle School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, winner of the Iowa regional competition.

Judges and members of the St. Barnabas Catholic School team view the school's entry.

The competition was hosted by software company Bentley Systems Inc., which also provided the competition's top prize, a trip to the U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala.
The students used SimCity 3000, donated by Electronic Arts division Maxis, to build a metropolis from the ground up, dealing with pollution, unemployment, education, traffic jams, and other real-life projects — all with a balanced budget. The teams then had to present and defend their city to a panel of judges at the competition. A teacher and a volunteer engineer mentor guided the student teams through the design process.

ASME member Scott Walthour was the judge for the award ASME sponsored during the competition, Best Futuristic City. The prize went to the team of students from Harding Middle School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The students on the team — Madison Fontana, Katy Huebsch and Sara Bergen — each received a plaque and a $200 savings bond.

Allison Garda and Natalie French from the Riverview team present their Future City.

The Harding team, which won the Iowa regional competition in January, best met the criteria for the Best Futuristic City, which simply were the best use of futuristic engineering concepts in the city's communications, energy or transportation systems, Walthour said. The winning team had an excellent design and combined that with an excellent oral presentation, he added.

Still, "selecting the award winner was very difficult, as all of the entries were very well done," said Walthour, a mechanical engineer from Fairfax, Va., and a member-at-large of ASME's Early Career Committee.

In addition to the Best Futuristic City award, a number of other awards were handed out during the Future City finals. The competition's overall winning entry, a city called "Avenir," was designed by students from Riverview Junior/Senior High School in Oakmont, Pa. The students won the trip to the U.S. Space Camp for their efforts.

Top honors went to Riverview. From left: Cara Hartz, Natalie French, teacher Brian Ludwig and Allison Garda.

The team from Valley Middle School in Oakland, N.J., winner of the New York City regional competition, placed second in the finals. Third place overall went to the team from Drexel Middle School, in Drexel Hill, Pa., which won the Philadelphia regional event.

If you weren't able to take part as a judge in this year's Future City Competition, make plans to do so next year. You'll be glad you did, Walthour said.

"Participating in the Future City Competition was an honor and a lot of fun," Walthour said. "I thoroughly enjoyed meeting the students and learning about their concepts and ideas for the future. In a way, it reminded me of why I entered the engineering field myself and filled me with a lot of optimism about our future."

To find out more about the Future City Competition, visit the Web site, www.futurecity.org.

 

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