Future City

For general information on the National Engineers Week Future City Competition, please visit the National Future City website: http://www.futurecity.org.

This year we have two teams, with three Engineer Mentors (Mr. Bellis, Mr. Gallagher, and Mr. Morgan) and a Project Management Specialist (Ms. Walawander).  The schedule will vary from month to month, maybe even week to week, to work around the demands of school work and sports practices and events. Currently we are meeting Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 2:45-3:45.

We‘re well along with designing our cities of the future with Simcity4 software, balancing zoning and city development, infrastructure, parks, schools, museums, sports facilities, budget constraints, and citizen demands… happily, we have some talented Simcity4 experts! 

The scenarios for both teams are now settled: one team is locating their city (D’Naleci) in Iceland (volcanoes and geothermal energy); the other has chosen Girdwood, Alaska (earthquakes and devastating forest fires).  Model scales have been chosen and plans are underway for designing and building a scale model from recycled materials of a section of the city and we are experimenting with a variety of building techniques.  Ms. Walawander, our Project Management Specialist from Cognigen Corporation, is teaching us a lot about project planning and student Project Leaders are keeping us on schedule, though Snow Days make that harder!

Presenters have been chosen and we are just beginning the process of developing ideas for the essay. This year’s essay topic is “Providing an affordable green living space for people who have lost their home due to a disaster or financial emergency”. The living space should use sustainable materials, have a low-carbon emissions footprint, and achieve the “Green Ideals” of energy efficient building. The living space design must consider the social, economic and ecological impact of the manufacturing and construction techniques. It should be constructed with the ideal of providing affordable homes to those facing disaster, financial crisis, and earning only 50% - 80% of the median income of the surrounding city.  

Join us at Mount St Mary’s High School on Saturday, January 23, to see our completed models and hear our presentations!

MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE BOWL:  Middle School Science Bowl, a Jeopardy-like competition for teams of 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grade students, is just getting underway, with the actual competition taking place in March. Further information coming soon! 

JUNIOR SOLAR SPRINT: This gets underway in late March and the competition takes place in May. Check out the local webpage at http://www.geocities.com/jssbuffalo/