New Richmond Middle School students design City of Tomorrow

New Richmond Middle School’s Future Cities team didn’t get a chance to present their project to state judges but they got excellent grades from the New Richmond Board of Education when they presented their concept of a city of the future at the board’s Feb. 21 meeting.

After weeks of design and construction, the NRMS students were prevented from participating in the final segment of the 2012 National Engineers Week Future City Competition in Columbus due to hazardous weather conditions.

“The fifth component was a 7-8 minute presentation in front of  a panel of professional engineers and scientists followed by a 7-8 minute question and answer period,” explained faculty advisor Pamela Hughes. “The only icy day of the year so far this winter was the day of the competition which has strict requirements and deadlines.”

Future Cities is a competition for middle school students sponsored by National Engineers Week.  The competition has five components: students had to research and write an essay about renewable energy resources, use SimCity software to design a virtual city, write a city narrative providing an overview of the city, construct a scale model of part of the city and make a 7-8 minute presentation in front of a panel of professional engineers and scientists followed by a 7-8 minute question and answer period.

“The Board appreciates the students and their teacher and parents spending time to show and present the Future Cities presentation to the School Board,” said school board member David Hawkins. “It is always nice to see presentations from our students so the Board and the public can see some of their outstanding work.”

Mr. Tom Andrews, a former NRMS parent, was the engineer mentor for our team.