Future City Regional Competition comes to Fort Wayne
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Inside INdiana Business) – The 19th Indiana Future City Regional Competition kicks off Saturday at Purdue University Fort Wayne. Seventeen middle school teams will face off to earn the chance to represent Indiana at the national finals in February.
The contest’s theme this year is Clean Water: Tap Into Tomorrow. To enter, teams chose a hypothetical threat to their city’s water supply and devised creative solutions to the problem.
Teams also design a virtual 3D city map using SimCity software and build a tabletop scale model of their city constructed primarily from recycled materials. They also must complete a research essay describing their city’s solution to the challenge.
The Indiana Regional preliminary round begins with team presentations to a panel of judges. Officials say over 40 local professionals will appraise the cities and designs to select the award winners and the five teams who will move on to the final round, sponsored by Indiana Michigan Power.
The winning team will represent Indiana at the Future City National Finals in Washington, D.C., in February during Engineers Week.
“We support the educators and mentors for their dedicated semester-long guidance of their teams. This project-based effort sparks student interest in STEM disciplines at a critical point in their education when they are considering their future careers,” said Carol Dostal, outreach director of the Purdue University Fort Wayne College of Engineering, Technology, and Computer Science.