Fort Huachuca Section, Region 6, IEEE

Future City Overview

OVERVIEW

The Future City Competition is a national program sponsored by the engineering community to promote technological literacy and engineering to middle school students.  The program fosters an interest in math, science, and engineering through hands-on, real world applications.  The competition is open to all public, private, and parochial schools.  The national finals of the Future City Competition are a featured event during National Engineers Week, with students from across the country competing in Washington, D.C.

GOALS

The Future City Competition offers students a fun way to learn about engineering and cities of the future.  Through the program, students will:

• Work as a team under the guidance of a teacher and a practicing engineer.

• Apply their knowledge to real world situations.

• See firsthand how engineers turn ideas into reality.

• Use the popular award-winning computer game, SimCity to design their future city.

• Build a scale model of a section of their city.

• Utilize their communication skills by preparing an essay and response to a special problem and a verbal presentation relating their experience in the design of their city and some specific engineering features.

Teams have six major deliverables during the course of the competition:

• Project plan.

• Computer disk containing the logical design of the city.

• Research essay.

• City design essay.

• Physical model of a section of the city.

• Verbal presentation.

MISSION

Students participating in the Future City Competition will gain and demonstrate:

• Problem solving skills.

• The ability to work in teams.

• Research and presentation skills.

• The application of math and science to practical problems.

• Computer skills.

• An increased awareness of community related issues.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE ENGINEER, TEACHER, AND THE STUDENTS

The competition employs a team-based approach.  Each team consists of three students, a teacher-sponsor and an engineer-sponsor.  All members of the team have a role that is necessary for the successful completion of the project.

A school may submit multiple teams.  Students may participate on one team only.

THE ROLE OF THE ENGINEER-MENTOR

The engineer is involved in all phases of the competition as an advisor and provides input and technical assistance, integrating real life engineering experiences as the students work on the competition.  The students must do all of the actual work, such as the computer design of the city, building the tabletop model, writing the essay and presenting the project during the competition with support from the engineer.  The time commitment from the engineer is approximately 35 hours between August and January.