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Students Compete To Create Future Cities
NBC4.com (District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia)

Tuesday, 21 February 2006

Competition Part Of Engineering Week

    WASHINGTON — As part of a national competition during Engineering Week, a lot of young minds are working on cities of the future. The cities aren't real, but the ideas may some day change how we live.

    The future cities competition gives middle school students a chance to taste engineering. They design using software called Sim City. The students then build a model of their ideas and present it to judges.

    The competition even had a few celebrity judges. Williard Boyle and George Smith, in town to receive a top engineering prize, told the students not to worry about mistakes, but learn from them. Boyle and Smith invented the CCD, little sensors in satellites, cameras and medical equipment that make digital imaging possible.

    "It has a very historical aspect to it, so you want to keep the integrity of the historical part, but still make it new and futuristic," said student Jordan Bell.

    "One of the great aspects about the Future City Competition is that they need to go out and find the information, something they may not be aware of that's out there, been used, didn't work, but maybe it will work in their city," said teacher Mark Bolt.

    Kids from St. Mary's School in Buffalo, NY, worked on new building materials and less reliance on fossil fuels. They used cold fusion and microbial fuel cells for power.

    The designs in all the projects are being thought of as ideas that could work in real cities of the future.

    News4 reporter I.J. Hudson said that statistics show that only about 10 percent of engineers in the U.S. are women. But in the future city competition, it's evenly divided, 50 percent boys and 50 percent girls, suggesting more women are considering engineering as a profession.

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