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Reporting Live from the Future City Competition

February 16, 2014 By Kim
Tagged With: contests for kids, engineering, Future City, STEAM, STEM, STEM competitions, contests for kids, STEM Girls


Future City Competition Finals, Washington, DC

I spent the morning watching teams set up their Future City models and prep for the competition. As I mentioned, I’m here in Washington, DC, with my client DiscoverE. They are one of the sponsors of the Future City middle school engineering competition.

The Future City Engineering Competition

Each team is associated with a teacher and an engineer mentor. I had the chance to talk with several and it’s clear they are quite fond of this competition. Of course, I talked with students, too. I learned about futuristic transportation, health monitoring and other aspects of their future cities, such as why one team chose to position their city on a human-made floating island (the rising sea levels associated with global climate change, of course). These kids have done their homework!

The one downside to the day is that due to last week’s midweek storm some of the model cities did not arrive in time for the competition. I’m sure this is heartbreaking for the teams. However, the judges have adapted and some awards are being held off until for a for a day or two until the models arrive. Even so, they have posters and slide shows and can talk about their cities even without the models.


Made from recycled materials and limited to a budget of $100, the models are fun to inspect. A visual tour might reveal old bottles of cucpake sprinkles turned into an apartment complex with solar panels, playing cards masquerading as office buildings and iron filings that simulate ocean waves thanks to a magnet underneath the surface. 

Another highlight of the day was hanging with some of my favorite DC-area mombloggers. I arranged the small blogger meet-up andate an even bigger and better event. My friends and their children think the Future City competition is as great as I do! hope that I can return next year to create something even bigger and better.
 
Washington DC mom bloggers at the Future City engineering competition for middle school students


Pictured L to R:  @MusingsfromMe, Jill Berry of MusingsofMe; @TeachMama, Amy Mascott of TeachMama; @TechSavvyMama, Leticia Barr of TechSavvyMama; @UrbanMama, Sandie Chen of TeenLitRocks; me; @ThienKim, Thien-Kim Lam of I’m Not the Nanny, and @JusticeFergie, Stacey Ferguson of JusticeFergie.com.

Learn more about the Future City Competition from this video.

Comments

  1. Thien-Kim aka Kim says

    February 17, 2014 at 9:18 pm

    Thank YOU for introducing me to such a great STEM program!

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About Kim

Kim headshot Summer 2012 I’m a Chicago-area mom of teen boys who is passionate about sharing ideas and resources to raise kids who love Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). I’m a blogger, vlogger, baker and maker, as well as the founder of #STEMchat. I also write about parenting gifted kids, girls in STEM and the Maker Movement. [Read More...]
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