Future City Competition

2- Peat for St. Clair Jr. High -
Repeats in CHICAGO REGIONAL FUTURE CITY ® COMPETITION

CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM NOW HEADS TO FINALS IN WASHINGTON DC, FEBRUARY 18-22

CHICAGO, January 27, 2012 – A team of students from St. Clair Jr. High has won the Chicago Regional National Engineers Week Future City ® competition. St Clair students traveled from a school located 50 miles west of St. Louis to compete in the Chicago competition. Leaving very early Friday morning to beat an impending snowstorm they arrived late Friday for the Saturday competition. They will now travel to Washington DC to compete in the 19th Annual Future City National Finals (www.futurecity.org), scheduled for February 19-21, 2012 at the Hyatt Regency in Crystal City, VA.

More than 33,000 students from 1,000 middle schools in 37 regions across the country are participating in the Future City regional competitions. The grand prize is a trip to Space Camp in Alabama, provided by National Finals host Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for the infrastructure that sustains our world.

The three winning team members are Christopher North (age 13), Emily Hansel (age 12) and Rileigh Cassimatis (age 13) and were assisted by Taylor Click (age 13) . Their teacher Jennifer Hawkins and Engineer mentor Angel Ramos, Spirit of St. Louis Airport provided guidance.

A repeat for St Clair!

In 2009, a team from St. Clair came in 4th place. In 2010, a team from St Clair came in 2nd. In 2011 and now in 2012 they took away top honors! BONDIDAG COVE is a future city in the Northern Territory of Australia. The city features electric driverless buses which are guided by rails under the street. Running on wires a Maglev SkyTran transports people above the city! Bondidag Cove uses renewable energy including wave power, wind and solar. An innovative 'Energy Paint' is used on many of the buildings acting as solar panels and powering many of the buildings.

The city gets its water from desalination plants. Rainwater harvesters are incorporated into the designs of buildings. Vertical farms run by robots provide food for the residents.

With a zoo, beautiful beaches, parks and other amenities Bongidag Cove is a perfect vacation destination in the year 2226.

Chris North says, "Engineering is the future and we're all going to take part in it. We are not going to have fossil fuels in the future, so the energy in our city will be used. All of our work paid off."

Taylor Click comments, "The hard work paid off! I enjoyed learning so much about what we can do to change the future. I'm excited to compete again in Washington, D.C."

The REAL FUTURE

This program has been instituted by the engineering profession to bring hands-on, practical applications of mathematics and science to educate young minds as to the essential role engineers play in creating our modern technological society," replied Robert B. Johnson, retired engineer - Bowman, Barrett & Associates, a spokesman for the Chicagoland Future City Program. "The future of America is not found on the basketball courts, football grid irons, tennis courts, golf courses or baseball diamonds, but in the minds of these young dreamers."

Chicago runners up include:

• 2nd – St Paul's Lutheran School, Brookfield
• 3rd – Stone Scholastic Academy, Chicago
• 4th – Oak Lawn Hometown Middle School
• 5th – Miles Davis Magnet Academy, Chicago

About the Competition

On January 21st students met at the University of Illinois - Chicago Circle Campus to exhibit their models. 40 professional engineers queried the teams as to the merits of their designs. Another 40 architects-engineers were involved in the special award judging. Entries were judged on creativity, city layout, and attractiveness by a variety of judges from the private and public sectors of engineering. This year was the 20th competition for what has become an annual event for Chicago's engineering community. The Chicagoland engineering community is proud of their record as the only city to host the competition since its inception in 1992.

Students create cities on computers using the SimCity™ 4 Deluxe software, provided by Electronic Arts, 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 must present and defend their designs at the competition before a panel of engineer judges who test the depth of the teams' knowledge. Students also write a 300-500 word city narrative describing their city and a 700-1000 word essay on the topic: – "Fuel Your Future: Imagine new ways to meet our energy needs and maintain a healthy planet."

This year's final round judges in Chicago included:

• Frank Avila, Commissioner - Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicagoland
• Arun Heer, U. S. Army Corps of Engineers
• Joseph Renn, Manager- Civil Environmental Engineering & Construction Management - City of Naperville
• John Yonan, Superintendent of Highways – Cook Country Highway Department

Special awards were present to schools for their individual accomplishments in the competition. In addition to winning the top prize, the St. Clair team received additional honors from The Illinois Association of County Engineers for their integrated highway design. Students from McClure Jr. High, Western Springs received an award from the Society of Women Engineers- Chicago Regional Section (www.swe.org/chicago) for the most inclusive community promoting work-force balance.

The Institute of Transportation Engineers (www.ilite.org) presented St Paul's Lutheran School, Brookfield a special award for excellence in transportation safety and operations. Another team coming from St Paul's Lutheran received an award from the Structural Engineers Association of Illinois (www.seaoi.org) for their most innovative structure while the Chicago Committee on High-Rise Buildings (www.cchrb.org) presented the another team of students from St. Clair with the award for best skyscrapers.

All together 27 "Special Awards" were presented to teams. The students voted for an award too! Once again the students agreed with the engineer judges in presenting the 'Peer Award' to the students from St. Clair. Oak Lawn Hometown Middle School received the best presentation and City Model. The best computer model went to the team from St. Paul's Lutheran School.

(Editors: Complete Listing of Awards @ http://www.futurecitychicago.org/winners.htm)

Derek Johnson, co-coordinator offers this comment, "It is a great experience for all involved -- the students have fun while learning about engineering and gaining valuable teamwork and presentation skills. Engineers, mentors, judges and volunteers always leave impressed by the students' ability and enthusiasm."

Regional chairman Don Wittmer notes, "It is exciting to see the interaction between the students and witness the enthusiasm that these students have in learning about engineering and the real life problems that are encounter everyday. Our hope is that this competition helps students consider the possibility of studying engineering when they attend college."

Rileigh Cassimatis states , "When they said we won, we realized the extra hours that we put in were more than worth it. Teamwork is what got us this far!"

All participants in the regional competition received promotional items including, participation medallions, E-Week Tee-Shirts, Future City Water Bottles and a host of other trinkets. These gifts were courtesy of HNTB, ASCE-Illinois Section and other sponsoring societies and companies. The winning teams will be feted at the Chicagoland Engineers Week Benefit, February 24th.

The National Finals grand prize is a trip to Space Camp in Alabama, provided by National Finals host Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for the infrastructure that sustains our world. The second place team receives $5,000 from the National Society of Professional Engineers and third place wins $2,000 from IEEE-USA for their schools' technology programs. Shell is also a national sponsor for the competition.

The 19th Annual Future City Competition for sixth, seventh and eighth grade students is sponsored in part by the National Engineers Week Foundation, a consortium of professional and technical societies and major U.S. corporations.

ABOUT ENGINEERS WEEK

The National Engineers Week Foundation, a formal coalition of more than 100 professional societies, major corporations and government agencies, is dedicated to ensuring a diverse and well-educated future engineering workforce by increasing understanding of and interest in engineering and technology careers among young students and by promoting pre-college literacy in math and science. Engineers Week (February 19-25, 2012) also raises public understanding and appreciation of engineers' contributions to society. Founded in 1951, it is among the oldest of America's professional outreach efforts. It is sponsored by the National Engineers Week Committee, a consortium of engineering associations and major U.S. industries. Co-chairs for 2012 are Battelle and ASME.

For more information, visit www.eweek.org.

For those wishing to compete in next year's competition or has any questions, please contact Don Wittmer at dwittmer@hntb.com or (312) 930-9119 or visit the website www.futurecitychicago.org.

# # #

SimCity 4 DeluxeTM is a trademark of Maxis, Walnut Creek, California and a wholly owned subsidiary of Electronic Arts. National Engineers Weekr is a registered trademark of the National Society of Professional Engineers.

Editors note: Photographs of the students models are available upon request.

A few are shown at the end of the piece.

Contact: Bob Johnson 847-870-7047 e-mail: Rbengrguy@aol.com

Medill News Service Report (Includes video!) http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=199047

2012 Pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10752828@N05/sets/72157629101671609/

Story/Pictures of the 2011 Competition:

http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=177881

http://www.suntimes.com/technology/guy/3413386-452/students-competition-engineer-bond-chicago.html

2011 Pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10752828@N05/sets/72157626018755926/

Additional information

http://www.todaysengineer.org/2008/Mar/FCC.asp
http://www.tiesmagazine.org/archives/mar_2003/pdf/mar_2003_FutureCities.pdf
http://www.organicgreenandnatural.com/2009/08/19/middle-school-students-to-design-affordable-housing-in-future-city-competition/
http://bdpa.groupsite.com/discussion/topic/show/223796
http://greenerfocus.blogspot.com/2010/08/building-engineers.html

Additionally

The Future City competition is one of the elements for the recognition of NATIONAL ENGINEERS WEEK® . Since 1951, NATIONAL ENGINEERS WEEK®, has been the nationwide celebration of the engineering profession, to acknowledge the essential role which engineering has played in advancing civilization and adding quality to our lives. In Chicago, activities scheduled include engineering lectures, student outreach efforts, bridge building competitions and exhibitions of engineering achievements.

Contact: Tim Seedan - Western Society of Engineers at tim@wsechicago.org or at 630/ 724-9770, 241-0142 fax.

Visit the NATIONAL ENGINEERS WEEK®

WINNING TEAM 1st Place team: St Clair Jr. High, Missouri - Future City - "Bondidag"	Close up of model	2nd Place Team: St Paul's Lutheran School, Brookfield , IL - Future City - "Dynamocity"	Teams get 'grilled' by a panel of distinguished engineer judges
Every student gets something for their participation! Here teams pick-up their T-Shirts.	Dozens of "Special Awards" are presented to the teams	All together 27 "Special Awards" were presented

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