Middle-schoolers cast eye to future

Budding urban engineers create models of cities of tomorrow

Welcome to the future, where cities use various energy sources, thrive under water or on a distant planet and where people use “Star Trek”-style transporters to move from place to place.

The future was Saturday at Kansas University’s Eaton Hall, where 21 teams of middle school students presented detailed plans and 3-D scale models of cities they had designed for the future.

Engineering judges pored over those plans and quizzed the students during National Engineers Week Future City Competition. Most of the teams were from Kansas City-area schools; none was from the immediate Lawrence area.

Thomas Lusk, Kyle Wolfe and Nathan Scheelhaase, all 13, waited in the hallway Saturday afternoon. The Westridge Middle School students, from Overland Park, were about to make a presentation in another round of judging.

On the floor next to them was their 30- by 60-inch model of the city of Solaris-Navitas.

“We put in a lot of time on this,” Nathan said. “We worked a lot on it over Christmas break.”

Solaris-Navitas gets most of its energy from the sun, Thomas said. He then pointed out the city’s attributes on the model, including an Army and Air Force base and football stadium.

Teams in the competition were required to use recyclable materials in building the models. The model of Solaris-Navitas was made of cereal boxes and plastic foam.

Pierce O'Neal, left, 13, and Luke Dykes, 12, take their future city Ad

Before building the models, however, teams designed their cities on the computer using SimCity 3000 software. Leaning against the wall were computer photos of the city and graphs showing how the city worked.

Teams designed and built their cities with the help of a teacher and a volunteer engineer mentor.

Elsewhere in Eaton Hall, the home of KU’s school of engineering, Eric Graves, Holly Kier and David Errett, all 14, also waited to make a presentation to judges. The Hocker Grove Middle School students from Shawnee built a city that could survive mostly under water and called it Hydroton, they said.

In Hydroton, plants provide oxygen and fuel cells combine the power of hydrogen and oxygen from a floating solar panel.

The Hocker Grove students said they rarely had any arguments while working on their city.

“The name was the only thing we didn’t agree on,” David said.

text National Engineers Week Future City Competition

The winners of the competition advance to the national competition Feb. 23-25 in Washington, D.C.

The Kansas City regional competition was sponsored by American Society of Civil Engineers Kansas Section and HNTB Corp. Judges included engineers and officials from government, industry and education from throughout Kansas.

“The Future City Competition is a great way to let students delve into engineering and experience firsthand the creativity that goes into engineering,” said Robb Sorem, associate dean for undergraduate studies in the KU school of engineering.

A team from Holy Trinity Catholic School in Lenexa was the first place winner in this year’s Future City Competition.Students on the team were Spencer Osbourn, Nathan Disadore and Emma Higgins. Their city was called UPM, which stood for United Pedestrians of Mars.The team will go on to the national competition in Washington, D.C., Feb. 23-25 during National Engineers Week.The team members also will be offered a $1,000 scholarship each from KU and Kansas State University if they choose to attend the particular school’s engineering school. KU and K-State each also gave $500 to Holy Trinity.