Oakland, NJ might not have the same water issues facing other parts of the country and many parts of the world, but we may have the future engineers who will find the necessary solutions. While today’s adults have created an economic nightmare and an environmental mess, hope still rises in the city of “Xi Wang Zhi Cheng (City of Hope).” This was the winning project submitted by Valley Middle School students in the in the 2009 National Engineers Week Future City Competition. Last month Lily Li, Jack Maguire, and Bobby Matts ventured to Polytechnic Institute of NYU’s new student center in Brooklyn to compete against dozens of other middle school teams in the metroploitan region.
Students, a teacher and a volunteer engineer work to create future cities on computers using SimCity 4 Deluxe software which is donated to each school by Electronic Arts of California. They are then required to build large scale tabletop models. Students also prepare a brief an essay that often rival their engineering work as their imaginations tackle social, moral, and technological challenges. This year’s essay topic focuses on water use, challenging students to create self-sufficient water systems for the homes in their future cities. The essays must describe a home outfitted with existing technologies for improving water use in the home, as well as incorporate new technologies, of the students’ invention, that will either provide a new source of renewable water supply, recycle water within the home, purify the water, or lower the overall water usage of the home. In addition, the system should also seek potential ways to contribute water back to the municipality or water source.
City of Hope
The Oakland project,Xi Wang Zhi Cheng (City of Hope), features edible buildings, pressurized aquatic vehicles, green roofs, methane recovery from rice paddies, and solar satellites. The city, constructed of recycled materials – from toothpaste boxes to aluminum cans – reflects a Chinese architectural style. Each of the three members of the Oakland team receives awards that include the promise of a $5,000 annual scholarship at Polytechnic, if they are accepted and enroll. Sean Reischel, Heetae An, and Matt Jang placed third, and won the coveted People’s Choice Award, with their Indian City, Amala Saher. The third place team receives an annual $1,000 scholarship. The New York City region where Oakland participated is on of 40 regions around the country that participate in the contest.
In addition, the first place team was sent as the NYC Area representative to Washington, D.C. during National Engineers Week, where President Obama had sent a greeting and letter of appreciation to the work of past, present and future engineers. Additional competitions and scholarships were part of the week long event that includes middle and high school students from around the nation. They were accompanied by their teacher, Judith Vihonski, and mentor/engineer, Robert Akovity.
The student mentors work to provide a reality check for the team members by helping to structure the hundreds of hours of effort and keeping their ideas based on current engineering theories. They must balance their practical input without impeding the amazing imagination of the students. They also assure the scale model spending is kept to at a maximum of 100$ which is a practical skill for any student seeking elected office in the future.