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Future City Competition - Call For Volunteers & Judges

Where has the year gone?  I hope you will be able to join the North Texas Region Future City Competition for another successful competition.  Last year we fielded about 60 teams.  With your assistance, we continue to expand the program to bring engineering, math, and science to more students.  The theme for 2013-2014 Competition is “Tomorrow's Transit”  The teams challenge is to identify a problem of moving people in their future city and design a mode of transportation to solve this problem.

A Year of Change

This is a year of changes for Future City.  Here in the North Texas Region, we have the largest enrollment of schools and teams that we have ever had in the 10+ years of operation.  Our normal enrollment is around 50-60 teams, and we current have 90+ teams.  The program is reaching out to more students than ever before.  But this means we are really in need of your help as a judge, as well as any other volunteers you may know.  Please forward this message on to your friends and co-workers.  Help us get the word out.

The Competition

The Future City Competition - sponsored by National Engineers Week - is designed to inspire 6-7-8th grade students about engineering by challenging them to solve the real-world problems associated with building a livable city of the future.  Hundreds of North Texas students, from more than 30 schools, have been working hard since October on their city concepts.

The students work in teams to first realize their city with a computer simulation (Sim City), then as a physical scale model.  Students must also research and write a paper on an engineering topic and publicly present their work to a panel of judges.

I would like to invite you to serve as a North Texas Region Future City Competition Volunteer and/or Judge.  There are opportunities to fit any schedule, from on-site judging and interaction with the students, to working at your convenience on your computer.  You may serve in any of the following ways:

1. Computer City Design - Judging the computer-simulated Future City design and layout.  City planning/development experience desired, but not required.  SimCity4 software and scoring templates will be provided.   Approximate time commitment: 10 hours, Now until January 14th, at your computer.

2. Essay and Narrative - Judging essays on materials of the future city design (1000 words), as well as a narrative of the future city (500 words.  Scoring templates will be provided.     Approximate time commitment: 10 hours, Now until January 20th, at your computer.

3. Models and Presentations - Small panels of judges evaluate the teams' presentation of their 3-D city models looking for teamwork, creativity, workmanship, transportation, moving part components and use of recycled materials.   Approximate time commitment: 6 hours, January 25nd, University of Texas, Arlington.

4. Miscellaneous Volunteers – Room Monitors/timers, Runners, etc. – Each room will need a timer/monitor during judging as well as other volunteers throughout the day.  We even need “runners” for the ballots to the scoring room so if you have children that want to volunteer with you this is a perfect time for them to get some service hours and free tee-shirt and lunch.   You don’t just have to be an “engineer” to volunteer.  Approximate time commitment:  6 hours, January 25nd, University of Texas, Arlington.

If you would like additional information regarding the local DFW competition, please visit http://www.dfwfuturecity.org. For information regarding the competition at the national level, please visit http://www.futurecity.org.

Thank you for your support and the contribution of your time and effort to the 2013 National Engineers Week Future City Competition.  If you have any questions, or need additional information, please feel free to contact me.

Cissy Sylo, P.E.
Future Cities Competition
North Texas Region Organizing Committee
Special Awards Chair
ASCE Dallas Branch Future Cities Chairperson
[email protected]
214-717-3279 (cell)