Future City Competition Winners

Future City Competition Winners

Congratulations to our amazing St. Rose of Lima Academy students, Claire Galvin, Madison Dyer, Ryan Schlageter, and Samantha Tush, for winning the special event category “The Most Creative Use of Construction Materials” at the National Engineers Week “Future City” Competition. The event was held last Saturday, Jan 12, at Rutgers University’s Piscataway Campus, NJ.  The “Future City” competition is a national, project-based learning experience for middle school students sponsored by the National Engineers Week Foundation [NEWF], a consortium of professional and technical societies, and major U.S. corporations.

Over 240 students from different schools across the state competed, with 80 teams qualifying for the regional finals. Each team had to submit a research essay based on the theme “Rethink Runoff -Design Clean Solutions to Manage Stormwater Pollution”, design and build virtual cities of the future using SimCity 4 Deluxe software, build an actual scale model of their virtual city, and present their ideas before judges at the Regional Competitions. Engineers from the American Society of Civil Engineers and private engineering firms served as judges in separate competition categories; Special Awards Category, Geomatics Engineering, and Best City Category. Regional winners represent their region at the National Finals in Washington, DC in February.

Our students did an excellent job not only in designing and constructing a city scale model that was unique, inventive, and eco-friendly, but they also presented their ideas and answered the judges’ questions with confidence, poise, and grace under pressure. A staff member from Rutgers University sums it all up by saying, “it is a remarkable accomplishment to win a special category prize, this being their first year to compete, since most of the participating teams have been in the competition for an average of 5-6 years now.”

This is the second time that Claire Galvin and Samantha Tush won in a national competition. Last year, both students, together with Isabella Vitalo and Isabelle Perry, won in the Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVision Contest, a national competition aimed at challenging young minds to innovate future technologies, and empowering the next generation of inventors, scientists, and leaders.

This is what our students have to say about their experience.

“I had a really great experience. I think we all did. My group and I got to see all different kinds of models and ideas. It was a great experience to be face to face with the judges instead of just submitting an essay.   I would definitely choose to do this again next year, especially because I now have a good grasp of what to be prepared for. We worked very hard on the model. I hope you like it too!”

Madison Dyer 7^th grade

“The competition was a lot of hard work, but it was fun. At Rutgers, it was exciting to see all of the different ideas and models people had come up with. Building the model was the best part, and I would definitely do the competition again. It was very cool that we won the most creative award. Our group was a new comer and we still won a prize.”

Ryan Schlageter 7^th grade

“On Saturday, I went to a competition called Future City with three of my friends. We were put in a group to compete against other schools with the same objective: build a city 150 years in the future. We were faced with the challenge of building a model out of materials with a budget of only $100. We made our model almost entirely out of recycled material. We were judged on many different subjects: energy, engineering, math, geometry, geography, ecology. Our group ended up winning an award for the most creative use of materials, which was a big honor because we were new comers in the competition. Going to the competition was a huge honor and a great experience. It gave me a better understanding of how engineering works and why it is important.”

Samantha Tush 7^th grade

“Future City has been such a great experience. I really loved working with my teammates building a scale model of a city out of recyclables. My favorite part of the competition was building the city and brainstorming on ways to manage water runoff. From this project, I learned to work hard to achieve our goals, to be more responsible, and to work as a team. What I will always remember about this competition is learning to speak in public with confidence.”

Claire Galvin 7^th grade