43
Holy Family eighth-graders create ‘Future City’
Photo
Neighbors | Sarah Foor .A group of eighth-grade students at Holy Family school recently participated in the Future City Competition in Columbus on Jan. 21, and the team was awarded "Best Use of Recycled Materials" and an honorable mention for "Best Use of Energy" at the event. Showing off Emman, their future city, were students Andrew Brockway (left), Nicholas Braydich, Matthew Holslinger, Michael Myers, and Evan Leek.
By SARAH FOOR
Holy Family eighth-grade engineers-in-training Mathew Holsinger, Nicholas Braydich, Evan Leek, Andrew Brockway and Michael Myers traveled to Columbus Jan. 21 to compete in the National Engineers Week Future City Competition.
Future City challenges student teams to design virtual cities with SimCity 4 software. From there, the students must build physical models with recycled materials and a budget of just $100, research and write a solution to an engineering problem as well as a narrative describing their city, and present their ideas before a panel of judges. This year, the eighth-graders tackled the theme of “Fuel Your Future.” The boys were asked to provide power sources for their city that did not deplete natural resources, and designed their floating city to rely on wave, solar and geothermal energy.
The eighth-graders’ project even included a tiny turbine to run on solar power, which was fully operational when a flashlight was pointed toward the solar panel.
The team was awarded “Best Use of Recycled Materials” and an honorable mention prize for “Best Use of Energy” at the event.
Holy Family teacher Charlotte Eskay was the faculty adviser for the project, with SMS Siemag engineer Carl Brockway acting as the project’s engineering adviser.
“The boys did well because they were a great team, they were well-spoken and they had a very unique concept,” said Eskay.
“The amount of work the boys put into the project was impressive, as a group and as individuals. We were the only city on water at the competition, which definitely shows that they’re all very creative thinkers,” added Brockway.
The students said the fun of the event was meeting others with similar interests.
“I was really excited to investigate other projects and trade ideas with some of the other teams,” Leek said.
“Future City was a lot of fun. I’d love to be an engineer someday and use these skills in the real world,” Braydich added.