Hubble Middle School Wins Chicago Future Cities Competition and Heads To Nationals

The seventh grade Future Cities team from Hubble Middle School won the Chicago Regional Future Cities Competition held on Saturday, January 27 at the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle campus and is one of 33 middle schools from across the country selected to compete in the National Future Cities Competition during National Engineers Week, February 21-23 in Washington, D.C.

They will leave Washington early in the day to be honored for their state achievement at the Chicagoland Engineers Week Benefit held the evening of
February 23 at The University Club of Chicago.    

The Hubble team competed with 21 other teams in the Chicago area to take the top state award for their city of the future called “Citto Sotto Ghiaccio”.  They also won Best Essay on the Use of Fuel Cell Technology.

The championship team includes the following 7th graders: Jack Cavanaugh, Greg Grabarek, Thomas Samaritano, Bradley Disbrow and Peter Ericksen.  Hubble Middle School Gifted Specialist Nina Koelpin and engineer mentor Bill Kirkman, directed the team. 

Hubble’s 8th grade team earned sixth place and won awards for Best Future City Promotion and Most Innovative Design for Delivery of Municipal Services.  The team includes the following students:  Janelle Niska, Mackenzie Kirkman, Amanda Meyer, Joey Kieckhafer, Alex Lemna and Will Kay. 

Franklin Middle School also took part in the competition with their city, “Geo Fresh”.  Franklin’s team won Best Name and Most Futuristic Idea That Would Benefit Chicago awards.  Franklin team members include 8th graders Meredith Davis and Adam Spahn and 7th graders Cole Manschot, Mariel Tader, Karen Suarez, Kipper Hogan and Ben Karmis.   The team was directed by Franklin teacher Liz Simpson and parent engineer Dave Manschot.  

The Future Cities Competition is a national program sponsored by the engineering community to interest middle school student in science and engineering through hands-on, real world applications.

Students are first asked to computer generate a futuristic city using the Sim City computer game.  The city is mapped and a portion is built into a 3-D model. Next, an
engineer mentor guides the students through the process of building a functioning futuristic city complete with transportation and waste management systems, communication networks, pollution control, etc. Teams are then asked to write an essay in response to a problem such as using an aggregate to improve upon a transportation problem. The last phase of the competition includes a 7-minute presentation by the team presenting and defending their city in front of a panel of professional engineers.

For more information see http://www.futurecity.org and contact Nina Koelpin, Hubble’s Gifted Teacher Specialist at 682-2160.