Future City Engineering
FUTURE CITY ENGINEERING INFORMATION
What Is Future City Engineering?
Future City starts with a question—how can we make the world a better place? To answer it, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students imagine, research, design, and build cities of the future that showcase their solution to a citywide sustainability issue. Past topics include stormwater management, urban agriculture, public spaces, and green energy.
This year’s theme
“Above the Current”
Design a floating city and provide two innovative examples of how your floating city works and
keeps its citizens healthy and safe.
Participants complete five deliverables: a 1,500-word city essay; a scale model (or multiple model segments) built from recycled materials; a project plan, a presentation, and a Q&A session with judges. Regional winners represent their region at the international Finals. After completing Future City, student participants are not only prepared to be citizens of today’s complex and technical world, but also poised to become the drivers of tomorrow.
Engineering and so much more
This flexible, cross-curricular educational program gives students an opportunity to do the things that engineers do—identify problems; brainstorm ideas; design solutions; test, retest and build; and share their results. This process is called the engineering design process. With this at its center, Future City is an engaging way to build students’ 21st century skills. Students participating in Future City:
Apply math and science concepts to real-world issues
Develop writing, public speaking, problem solving, and time management skills
Research and propose solutions to engineering challenges
Discover different types of engineering and explore careers options
Learn how their communities work and become better citizens
Develop strong time management and project management skills
Overview: The Floating City Challenge
Floating cities have captured our imaginations for thousands of years. As long ago as the 7th century BC, Homer described one in The Odyssey. But now, floating cities are more than a fantastical idea: engineers, scientists, and architects are making them real. It’s predicted that by the end of this century more than 500 coastal cities around the world will be underwater because of sea level rise. Massive storms fueled by climate change will further threaten flooded coasts.
In recent years, scientists and engineers have been building prototypes of floating cities. Floating cities can rise along with sea levels and ride the waves of big storms. If floating cities near coastlines become a reality, then coastal ecosystems can be restored to act as natural flood barriers. In some cases, floating cities are extensions of existing cities, in other cases they are completely independent.
Today’s experimental floating cities use cutting-edge technology and clean energy to house people comfortably and provide everything they need. Built with materials that have neutral or beneficial impacts on biological systems, they are designed to start healing the damage done to the ocean as well as keep their residents safe and healthy.
The students’ challenge: Design a floating city and provide two innovative examples of how your floating city works and keeps its citizens healthy and safe.
There will be a Future City Engineering Info meeting in September (Date TBA) for all parents interested in hearing about this awesome activity for middle school students this year! Watch this website and the principal's newsletter for more information about the date and location for this meeting
Interested students will meet with Mrs. Reese at WRMS during Wildcat Time in September (date TBA) to learn about this program. If the student is interested, s/he will be asked to complete a form which will need to be signed by a parent.
Congratulations to Team Solaris for placing third overall in the 2024 Regional Future City Engineering Finals Round!
Congratulations to EACH of our Future City Engineering teams for winning a Special Award at the 2024 Regionals:
Team Luminaria - "Young Professional Engineers of the Future"
Janelle Lee, Sophie Geng, Joyce Jin, Lucas Forrester, Anya Swamy, Zoya Swamy, Willem Tilma, Camran Tran, Haly Tran, Samuel Fang
Team Los Angeles - "Excellence in Quality of Life"
Ittai Paul, Sita Premkishore, Nailah Islam, Siddarth Shah, Evelyn Jiang, Addie Dang
Team Illuminae - "Most Innovative Way of Energy Production". and "Best Model"
Ahnushka Srinivasa, Miakela Smith, Aditi Toom, Haley Tsai
Team Solaris - "CityLab Award for Excellence in Architecture, Planning and Environmental Engineering" and Third Place in the Finals Round
Diya Sharma, Maanya Hebbar, Avery Ramsower, Ameya Vetrivel, Harika Shankar, Kavya Achanta
Team Dhalectric - "Excellence in Transportation Integration"
Prasad Grover, Avaneesh Saripalli, Luke Guo, Magnus Fredell, Jonathan Davies, Jaydon Xu
Team Weilai - "Riskonator Award"
Advika Gunturu, Viraj Rungta, Haaniya Rashid, Aarshi Chava, Grace Gao, Pranav Krishnamurthy, Medha Sitaram
Team "2323" - "Excellence in City Design"
Bradely Mehes, Alex Bouris, Merit Leahy
Congratulations to Team Libratum for winning First Place in the 2023 Regional Finals Round of the Future City Engineering Competition!!
Congratulations to ALL of our WRMS teams for their hard work! Each team impressed the judges with their knowledge and creativity as they created solutions for climate change in each of their city designs!
Congratulations to Team Libratum for placing 5th in the world at International Finals in Washington, DC!!! This team also won a special National award for Best Systems Integration!
Congratulations to Team Nautilus for placing second in the 2022 Regional Finals Round of the Future City Engineering Competition!!!
Congratulations to all seven of our WRMS teams for all of their hard work!
Each team won a Special Award during competition this year!!
Congratulations Team Luna Station Vulcan!!
First Place at the 2021 Regional Future City Engineering Competition!
Congratulations to ALL of our WRMS Future City Engineering Teams for a job well done during a VERY challenging year!
Congratulations Team Ochrona!!
First Place at the 2019 Regional Future City Engineering Competition!!
Congratulations to all of our 2018-19 Future City Engineering Teams!
Our five West Ridge Middle School teams did a GREAT job this weekend at the Future City Engineering competition at UT-Arlington on Saturday, January 26!!! This year's challenge, "Powering Our Future," involved solving the problem of power grid resiliency in the face of natural disasters. Students designed a virtual city, wrote an essay, created a 3-D model of their city, and developed a 7 minute presentation to share in front of a panel of engineers.
Every single one of the five WRMS teams participating in the 2019 competition won an award! Please congratulate the following students:
Team Ochrona
First Place Overall; plus People's Choice for Best Model, plus Best Use of the "Powering our Future" Theme.
Charlie Kley
Connor Guess
Orion Maher
Nick Massaed
Erik Seghers
Katelyn Yu
Team Electropia
"Best Residential Zone"
Natale Kozlowski
Penelope Tupou-Lisle
Hannah Hollenbeck
Anika Gullapalli
Catherine Tu
Kenna O
Emma Wang
Team Evergreen
The "Riskonater Award"
Esin Serbest
David Li
Anay Patel
Alp Serbest
Aneesh Kondagunturi
Romeer Pillay
Team Invinciville
"Best Use of Power Diversity Employing Nuclear"
Andy Hou
Mrinali Ganta
Ruiqi Li
Andrew Han
Ella Jiang
Ava Bush
Olivia Estioko
Parker Seeley
Team Vigoropolis:
"Most Innovative Use of Construction Materials and Techniques"
Isabela Riggs
Sol Segura
Eavan Amador
Zoe Greene
Nina Corso
Anabelle Merlick
Congratulations to WRMS Team Sociecity, the Future City Engineering NATIONAL CHAMPIONS of 2017!!!!!!!! Watch the video to see how some of these team members used their Future City skills and brought about real world change!