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Two District 200 teams captured top honors, including the state championship, in the Chicago Regional Future Cities Competition held January 29 at The University of Illinois, Chicago campus. The Future Cities team from Hubble Middle School won the Chicago Regional Future Cities Competition and is one of 32 middle schools from across the country to compete in the National Future Cities Competition during National Engineers Week, February 20-26, in Washington, D.C. They will also be honored for their state achievement at the Chicagoland Engineers Awards Benefit on February 25 at Chicago’s Hyatt Regency, McCormick Place. The Hubble team competed with 18 other teams in the Chicago area to take top awards for their city of the future called “Valescare”, which means “making Mars stronger”. The team includes eighth graders Dan Regan, Claire Bennett, Joshua Jones and Priyanka Prakash; and seventh graders Joseph Bates, Allison Bratzel, Patrick Cavanaugh, Ryan Eakins, Nathan Schleicher and Shailee Shah. Under the direction of Gifted Teacher Specialist Nina Koelpin and Jennifer Sonntag, engineer mentor from McMaster-Carr Company, Hubble’s team won top honors for best computer design city, peer award for best future city model, best site selection and the environmental award. Franklin Middle School, Wheaton, earned a close second in the competition with their city, “Los Upsilaurum”. Franklin’s team won best model, best presentation, best use of transportation and best understanding of architecture. The Franklin team won the competition last year. Franklin team members include eighth graders Sean Bomher, Meredith Young and Erin DuVair; and seventh graders Kevin Bomher, Alex Taira, Hannah Farnsworth, Emma Peterson, Devyn Manschot, Taylor Myers and Chris Colton. The team was directed by Gifted Teacher Specialist Melissa Chadwick DeCarlo and mentored by parents Henry Taira, Craig Farnsworth, Dave Manschot and John Bomher. 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.
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