Future City Competition Cultivates Future Engineers

More than 40,000 students from 1,350 middle schools participated nationwide in 37 regional competitions as part of the 2014 National Engineers Week Future City. Commissioner Frank Avila, chairman of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago’s (MWRD) Engineering Committee, along with several staff, served as mentors and judges during the Chicago regional competition held at the University of Illinois at Chicago on Jan. 25.

MWRD engineers Fay Costa, Terry Maiellaro, Lou Storino, Predrag Ungureanu, Joel Vega and Jeff Weber served as judges, and Michael Tom volunteered as a mentor.

Students voluntarily participate in the Future Cities program, working as a team with a teacher and engineer mentor to plan a city using SimCity software. The students research and write a 1,000 word essay to solve an engineering problem within their city, construct tabletop scale models with recycled materials and make a presentation about their projects.

“It’s great that district staff take time to help mentor young people, and it’s heartening that so many young people take an interest in imagining, designing and building mock cities of the future,” said Commissioner Avila. “The Future Cities competition offers students a hands-on opportunity to explore personal interests while at the same time potentially laying the ground work for future engineers.”

This year's theme was "Tomorrow’s Transit: Design A Way To Move People In And Around Your City.” Regional chairman Don Wittmer said, “The Future City Competition gives students the opportunity to learn about engineering and the real life problems that are encountered by engineers everyday while encouraging the students to work together as a team on a challenging multi-faceted project. Teamwork is necessary for them to succeed in completing their tasks, similar to an engineer’s daily routine.”

Source: Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago