Future City Results – 2005
The Phoenix Section of AIAA participated in this year’s Future City program by presenting an award to the entry displaying the best use of aerospace technology. The Future City competition is a national program sponsored by the engineering community to promote technological literacy and engineering to middle school students. The program fosters an interest in math, science, and engineering through hands-on, real world applications. The winner of the Phoenix regional competition will go to the National Finals of the Future City Competition in Washington, D.C., a featured event during National Engineers Week, competing with students from across the country.
The competition employs a team-based approach. Each team consists of three students, a teacher-sponsor and an engineer-mentor. All members of the team have a role that is necessary for the successful completion of the project. There are panels of judges who select the overall winners, and this year, representatives from 23 engineering societies presented awards in their specialty area. We selected the entry titled “Sulcata” from the Palominas School as our winner.
There were several entries with a space theme, including space colonies, moon bases, and cities on Mars. Sulcata represented a domed city on Mars. They demonstrated a good understanding of solar sails, communication satellites, and solar thermal electric power generators. As is typical of many of these entries, a bit of fantasy science slipped in (quantum teleportation) but it was not a central theme of the exhibit. The model was well done with many explanatory placards, and the students did a great job on their presentation and answering questions. Section members (Mike Mackowski, Kelly Fitzpatrick, and Christy Schroeder) did preliminary judging Tuesday evening, January 18, with final selection and awards presentation on Saturday, January 22. The overall first place award went to “Petersville” by a team from the West Side Home Educators.
Photo caption:
Student Nathan Moon shows off the Martian city of Sulcata