Jennifer Amadeo, Customer Design Supervisor, and Kyle Baker, Engineering Technologist, were judges at the Indiana Future City Regional Competition at Purdue University Fort Wayne. Teams of middle school students displayed tabletop cities they created, complete with the infrastructure that all cities need, including transportation and electrical and water systems. This year’s theme is “Clean Water: Tap Into Tomorrow.”
&M was principal sponsor of the event, which includes an overall award for the best city as well as category awards. Kyle and Jennifer judged for Outstanding Citywide Best Electrical Power, which goes to the city with the most creative, sensible, economically sound electrical power source and distribution system.
“It’s always so interesting to see how creative young minds can be,” Jennifer said. “They presented very well and were able to answer all of our questions.”
“A lot of them had different types of hydro-electric sources,” Kyle said. “It was great the way they let their imaginations show.”
Woodside Middle School’s city – Ciudad de Lluvia – won the award for Outstanding Citywide Best Electrical Power.
I&M has supported the Future City Regional Competition for more than a decade for the event’s role in promoting Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education for middle school students. Future City helps students use math and science concepts for real-world issues, and helps them learn how to research and propose solutions to engineering challenges.
I&M was principal sponsor for the regional event and will support regional winner Norwell Middle School’s travel to Washington, D.C., for the national competition.
UPDATE:
Congratulations to Norwell Middle School for winning first place at the Future City Competition national finals on 2/18!