Spring 2022

NSPE Today
Central PA Team Takes the Future City Grand Prize

Students representing Warwick Middle School in Lititz, Pennsylvania, were awarded the 2022 Future City Competition grand prize for their “Buenos Aires” city design and presentation during a virtual awards ceremony livestreamed on March 23. This year’s competition theme—A Waste-Free Future!—involved the use of three principles of a circular economy to design a futuristic, waste-free city.

The Warwick Middle School team members were awarded a trip to the US Space Camp and the school will receive $7,500 for its STEM program, provided by the final’s competition sponsor Bentley Systems Inc. The students—Rya, Gabby, Austin, Lizzy, Emily, Rowan, Ryker, Ian, Sara, Jenna, Seth, Nathaniel, Sebastian, Sarah, Jack, Slade, Liz, Reid, Ian, Henry, Sam, Kayla, August, Nula, Rivers, Soren, Jack, Audrey, Axel, Travis, Lucy, Leah, Aaron, and Tristan—teamed with educator Michael Smith and volunteer mentor Grace Kegel to earn this year’s top honors.

This win is a great comeback for the team which took second place in last year’s competition for its A1-Choros city project to highlight a Living on the Moon theme. The school also garnered a grand prize win in the 2019 finals competition.

The Future City Competition is a project-based learning program where students in grades 6-8 imagine, research, design, and build cities of the future. The competition engages more than 45,000 middle school students each year throughout the US and abroad. Students repeatedly report that the program increases their motivation and excitement about science, technology, engineering, and math.

Working as a team with an educator and STEM mentor, students present their vision of the future through a 1,500-word city essay; a scale model of their city (built with recycled materials); a project plan to help keep their project on track; a short video presentation, and a live, online Q&A session with a panel of technical judges. Keeping the engineering design process and project management front and center, students are asked to address an authentic, real-world question: How can we make the world a better place?

The following teams made it into the top five lineup and were recognized during the ceremony for their city designs with awards to benefit their school STEM programs.

• The St. John Lutheran School team (Michigan) landed in second place for the “Detroit-FC” project and received a $5,000 award sponsored by Shell.
• The Sharing in Adventures in Learning team (Texas) earned the third-place spot for the “Zale City” project and received a $2,000 award sponsored by Bechtel.
• The Tsinglan School team (Guangdong Province, China) landed in fourth place for the “Oceanus City” project and received a $750 award sponsored by NCEES.
• Glenn Hills Middle School (Wisconsin) took the fifth-place spot and received a $750 award sponsored by NCEES.

NC Team Receives Professional Engineering Award

A team representing J.M. Alexander Middle School in Huntersville, North Carolina, received the special Professional Engineering Award for their “Terra Limpa, Mozambique” city during the 2022 Future City Finals. NSPE Board of Directors members Rick Guerra, P.E., F.NSPE, Britt Smith, P.E., F.NSPE, and Megan Schultz, P.E., served as judges for the $2,000 award sponsored by NSPE.

Team members Zachary, Audrey, Joshua, Kalista, Wesley, Bryan, Oliver, Jaylen, Aaron, Dakota, Isaiah, Isaac, and Jenifer collaborated with educator Leslie Cosentine on the project.

The J.M. Alexander Middle School team won for demonstrating a thorough understanding of the need for technical and ethical reviews by creating both a board of technical review and a board of ethical review to oversee their engineers. The team also placed an emphasis on STEM education in their schools. Other teams won special awards sponsored by engineering societies and organizations such AARP and the Ceramic and Glass Industry Foundation.

Future City has ongoing opportunities for engineering and technical professionals to volunteer in a number of different roles, including as team mentors, competition judges, and regional coordinators. For more information about Future City and volunteer opportunities, visit www.futurecity.org.