Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
DASD Schools rank in Academic Competition
Two Downingtown middle schools finished in the top three in the Future Cities competition.
The Downingtown Middle School team, consisting of students Curtis Hankins, Regan Hardin, Gabrielle Robino and Mara Grigore, placed second with their city of Evimeria. They were assisted by teacher Derek Mastrangelo and mentor Tom Chmielenski. The Downingtown Middle School team also received the honor of best essay.
Lionville Middle School, also in the Downingtown Area School District, placed third. The team consisted of students Brendan Flynn, Troy Ramiscal, Aparna Vagvala and Sydney Schweiger. They were assisted by teacher Guy Raines and mentor Daisy Adams, for their city of Alencia. They also received an honor for best energy-based project.
The competition recently took place at Archbishop Carroll High School in Radnor in Delaware County. A city of the future called Taiohi, engineered by students from the Queen of Angels Regional Catholic School in Wlilow Grove in Montgomery County, placed first. The winning team heads to Washington D.C. to compete against other regional winners and vie for a chance at the national grand prize of a trip to U.S. Space Camp and $7,500 for its school’s STEM program, which is provided by Finals sponsor Bentley Systems, Inc..
Since last fall, more than 40,000 middle school students from 1,350 schools in 37 U.S. regions, as well as teams from Canada, China, and the Middle East, have been imagining, designing and building the cities of the future. This year’s theme, The Age Friendly City, encourages students to design innovative, multiuse public spaces that serves a city’s older population.
The Future City competition empowers students
in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades to imagine, research, design and build cities of the future. Keeping the engineering design process and project management front and center, students are asked to address an authentic, real-world question: How can we make the world a better place?
During the Future City competition, students work as a team to complete five deliverables. They design a virtual city using SimCity software. They research a city-wide issue and write an essay describing their findings and innovative solutions. Teams complete a project
plan to help keep their project on track. They also build a tabletop scale model of their city using recycled materials and create a short presentation about their city.
Future City has ongoing opportunities for engineering and technical professionals to volunteer in a number of different roles, including mentors and regional coordinators. For information about Future City or to volunteer, visit www.futurecity.org.
The competition is sponsored by Bentley Systems, Inc., the Bechtel Corporation, Shell Oil Company and DiscoverE.