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UPDATED - Future Cities Competition

On January 22^nd, several ASCE volunteers helped judge the models and presentations at the 2011 North Texas Future Cities Competition held on the UT-Arlington campus. The annual Future Cities Competition, the nation's largest not-for-profit engineering education program, offers students a fun way to learn about different kinds of engineering by dealing with the real-world problems associated with creating a livable city of the future. The competition is open to all public, private, parochial, and home school 6th, 7th and 8th grades. Students working in teams with a volunteer-mentor first generate a computerized design of a future city, build a scale model, research, write an essay on an assigned technical topic, and finally, publicly present their projects to a panel of judges.

Among their designs: direct-to-brain communications systems, self-repairing roadways, fusion generators, and biotechnical solutions for pollution. It is hard to know who gets more out of the experience: the students, their teachers, or the volunteers running the program. In the end, though, we are all benefiting by knowing we have helped to give the next generation the skills to cope with the future. Here is what some of our volunteers said about the day’s activities:

“I had a great time, I really enjoyed the event.  I’m always impressed with the kids that participate in the Future Cities (competition) and the level of detail they go into.  I look forward to participating again next year.” – Najitha Bulathsinhala, EIT

“It’s great to give back and help encourage the amazingly creative minds of the next generation.” – Dennis Ingram

This year’s challenge was to develop a type of effective health care product then create a city that uses this product to effectively improve the quality of life and comfort of the citizens. First place went to a team from McLean Middle School whose hard work and innovation creating a city for the blind paid off at the competition. We would like to thank all of the ASCE volunteers that helped judge at this year’s Future Cities Competition: Jeff Hawkins, Aimee Morace, Colin Blankenship, Michael McMicken, Dennis Ingram, Chris Tansil, Wayne Barton, Sean Merrell, Matt Ludwig, Najitha Bulathsinhala and Alison Smith. In addition to the volunteers that signed up through the ASCE website, we also had many ASCE members that volunteered directly through the Future Cities website and participated in the event. We had a great turn out this year! We had approximately 35 Dallas Branch volunteers’ sign up to judge Essays, Models, Presentations and Special Awards! We would like to especially thank Cissy Sylo and Thomas Hunt, who both took on Chair positions this year. Mrs. Sylo was this year’s Special Awards Coordinator and Mr. Hunt was this year’s Mentor Coordinator, these are both very time consuming positions and we appreciate both of them representing the ASCE. Thank you to all ASCE volunteers, we look forward to working this event with you again next year! If you would like any additional information about this year’s results or how you can help out next year, please contact Alison Smith at [email protected] or Richard Reppert at [email protected]

2011 Future Cities Competition Design

Future Cities Competition volunteers (from left): Allison Smith, ASCE Dallas Branch Education Chair, Sean Merrell, ASCE Dallas Branch Vice-President.