by Marty Trese, KnoxPages.com editor
MOUNT VERNON — 8th grade students from St. Vincent de Paul School in Mount Vernon compete this weekend in the Ohio Region Future City Competition at Columbus State Community College. The team made up of Ethan Buehrer, Billy Davis, Luke Trese, and Brendan Richardson has been working with St. Vincent teacher Terra Dilley and Engineer Advisor Joe Taposci for several weeks creating the model of a city in the future using Sim City software. The team presented their future city to the St. Vincent student body on Thursday morning and fielded questions in preparation for judges inquiries this weekend.
8th graders from St. Vincent de Paul preparing for this weekend’s Future city competition in Columbus are from left Billy Davis, Luke Trese, Ethan Buehrer and Brendan Richardson. Engineer Advisor Joe Taposci will accompany the group. – KnoxPages.com photo
The St. Vincent students chose the name, Reti Tu Cuyf for their city, which is located in Mozambique. Some of the city’s features include 100% alternative energy sources, including solar panels; and a podway for mass transit, which can travel as fast as 100 miles per hour in the city. Reti Tu Cuyf also features drones for security and the use of rainwater for commodes and a desalinization plant for clean water. The model was constructed of recycled materials such as chip containers, fast food boxes, parts of an old washing machine and plastic pop bottles.
On their website, The Future City Competition is described as “a national, project-based learning experience where students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade imagine, design, and build cities of the future. Students work as a team with an educator and engineer mentor to plan cities using SimCity™ software; research and write solutions to an engineering problem; build tabletop scale models with recycled materials; and present their ideas before judges at Regional Competitions in January. Regional winners represent their region at the National Finals in Washington, DC in February.”
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 teamwork skills
