FUELING THE FUTURE:
ESD
Michigan Regional Future City Competition
January 30, 2012
Suburban Collection Showplace, Novi, MI (formerly Rock Financial Showplace, Novi)
What is the Future City Competition?
The Future City Competition challenges students to design a city of the future - and have fun doing it. This program was designed to promote technological literacy and engineering to sixth, seventh and eighth grade students. The program fosters an interest in math, science and engineering through hands-on, real world applications and helps students better understand the practical applications of mathematical and scientific principles.
The Future City Competition is a team-based program consisting of students, a teacher, and an engineer mentor. Throughout the competition, students learn to apply their knowledge to real-world situations, while seeing first-hand how an engineer turns ideas into reality. Through participation in this program, students develop their problem-solving skills, as well as their ability to work as a team. They learn how to conduct research and develop their presentation skills. As they begin to design and build their city, the team members apply various math and scientific principles to address practical problems, thereby increasing their awareness of community related issues.
The Michigan Regional Future City Competition is part of a national program sponsored by the National Engineers Week Committee, and is coordinated by The Engineering Society of Detroit. National Engineers Week seeks to increase public awareness and appreciation of the engineering profession and technology by emphasizing the engineer’s positive contributions to society.
Who can participate?
The Michigan Regional Future City Competition is open to Michigan students in 6th, 7th and 8th grades who are from the same school or from a home school environment. The competition is team-based and each team consists of at least three students, a teacher and an engineer-mentor. A team can include a whole class or as few as three students.
When is the Competition?
The Michigan Regional Future City Competition will take place January 30, 2012. In February, the winning team from each region competes at the national finals in Washington, DC. Each winning team receives an all expense-paid trip to Washington, DC, to compete in the finals.
2012 Challenge: “Fuel Your Future: Imagine New Ways to Meet Our Energy Needs and Maintain a Healthy Planet.”
The city must display residential, commercial and industrial areas, power plants, transportation systems, community services and communication systems. Other issues that must be addressed are environmental controls, traffic density, taxes and operating budgets.
Students will:
Work as team under the guidance of an engineer and a teacher
Develop a project plan to guide team activities
Use SimCity software to design their virtual city
Research and write an essay (maximum 1,000 words) and a narrative (maximum 500 words) describing their city’s key features and attributes
Build a tabletop scale model using recycled materials that has at least one moving part
Enhance communications skills through a team presentation
Why are Engineer Mentors Needed?
The volunteer engineer mentor is an integral part of the Future City Team. This competition underscores the engineer’s expertise and the skills necessary for the planning and development of our cities of the future. Participants learn how engineers turn ideas into reality and apply their knowledge to real world situations.
What Role Does the Engineer Mentor Play?
Throughout the Michigan Regional Future City Competition, engineer mentors work with student teams as they design and build their city of the future. The engineer is involved in all phases of the competition as an advisor, providing input and technical assistance to students. Students must do all of the actual work from designing of the city on the computer to writing an essay, building a tabletop model and giving a verbal presentation. Engineers typically spend 40 hours with their team between September and January. Engineers can mentor solo or as a group.
The Engineering Society of Detroit matches engineers with school teams. Interested engineers can volunteer by contacting Sue Ruffner at 248-353-0735, ext. 117, or sruffner@esd.org Please download a Mentor Information & Sign-Up Form.
Why are Judges Needed and What Do They Do?
The role of the judge is to draw on their expertise and resources to fairly judge the teams’ efforts. Judges will be needed at each of the three stages of the competition. Please download a Judge Information and Sign-Up Form.
Judge SimCity designs: Before Thanksgiving, teams must submit the city plan that they have designed using SimCity software. The SimCity designs will be judged in December and early January.
Judge Essays: As part of the competition, students write a narrative (maximum 500 words) describing their city’s key features and design attributes, as well as a 1,000 word essay. The essay and narrative will be judged in mid-December. No advance training is required, but you will receive detailed instructions.
Judge Future City models: The third part of the competition involves attending the Michigan Regional Future City Competition in January. The training for this phase of the competition is at 7:30 on the morning of the competition. The actual judging is from 9-11 a.m. At that time, the schools display their model cities and three representatives from each team give a five-to-seven minute presentation to a panel of judges.
How Can Future City Be Tied Into the Curriculum?
The National Engineers Week Future City Competition provides an excellent opportunity for applying elements of math, science, computer science, social studies, language arts, and art curricula to hands-on projects that capture the imagination and stoke the creative problem-solving abilities of students in sixth, seventh and eighth grades.
A chart matching Future City deliverables to learning objectives, as well as an outline on how Future City meets national standards can be found at www.futurecity.org. You may choose to use this program as part of a team teaching effort to complement lessons in any one of the math, science computer science, social studies, language arts and art curricula, or as part of an after school club activity.
How Can I Sign Up?
Contact Sue Ruffner at 248-353-0735, ext. 117, or sruffner@esd.org. Please download a Future City School Team Registration Form.
The Future City Competition challenges students to design a city of the future - and have fun doing it. This program was designed to promote technological literacy and engineering to sixth, seventh and eighth grade students. The program fosters an interest in math, science and engineering through hands-on, real world applications and helps students better understand the practical applications of mathematical and scientific principles. 
