featuring developments in federal highway policies, programs, and research and technology |
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Middle
School Students Design Future Cities
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Students
explain their model to the judges
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As part of this effort,
engineers work with seventh- and eighth-grade students to imagine cities in
the 21st century. Teams design the cities by computer and build scale models.
An estimated 18,000 students participated nationwide.
In addition to awards for the best overall design, several companies and agencies
sponsored special awards for specific parts or features of the design. In 2000,
for the first time, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) sponsored a "Special
Award" to the Future City team that best incorporated transportation elements
in their prototype future city. Each of the five members of the winning team
received a $100 savings bond and a framed certificate of recognition. In addition,
the model built by the team was displayed in the Office of the Federal Highway
Administrator.
FHWA sponsored the award to encourage middle school students to consider careers
in engineering and transportation and to promote an appreciation for the important
role of transportation in enhancing our quality of life and for the real problems
that highway engineers solve in planning, building, and operating our transportation
systems.
The team that received the Special Award for Transportation was from Santa Fe
Junior High School in Santa Fe, Texas, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south
of Houston. The team of Benjamin Bagley, Amir Befouri, and Dallas Hicks was
guided by a faculty advisor, Brenda Doty, and an engineering advisor from the
Texas Department of Transportation, Phaisarn Cwatanaphol. The name of their
future city in California was Statesville (Dallas Harbour), described as Earth's
ideal city with perfect weather. The design contained many transportation elements,
including a major port; driverless taxis, which scan a ticket and transport
a person to his destination; personal flying machines, which are mini-helicopters;
vacuum tubes; people movers, which are moving sidewalks 25 feet (7.6 meters)
above the ground; and track runners, which dispense cargo and people throughout
the city.
There were many excellent models and selecting a winner was difficult. The transportation
system of Valhallan was also one of the outstanding features of the future city
designed by students from Nipher Middle School in Kirkwood, Mo., a suburb of
St. Louis. Valhallan was the overall winner of the eighth annual National Engineers
Week Future City Competition. Established in 2050 on Mars, Valhallan, originally
a multicultural colony for the purpose of researching Mars' mineral and water
resources, quickly became a tourist mecca and technology hub. A pneumatic suction
and subway system, called ValSub, moves citizens efficiently and silently through
Valhallan.
The Nipher team included students Travis Hawk, Andrew Lusk, and Luke Obukowicz;
teacher Mary Jo Brown; and engineer mentor William H. Gillespie, an aeronautical
engineer at WHG Consulting Inc. The Nipher team receives a free trip to the
U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala., donated by Bentley Systems.
Maxis, a software firm based in Walnut Creek, Calif., donated "SimCity
2000" software to all participating schools to enable them to design their
future cities. The software incorporates factors related to politics, transportation,
budgeting, energy needs, and other difficulties.
Visit the National Engineers Week Future City Competition on the World Wide
Web at http://www.futurecity.org and
National Engineers Week at http://www.eweek.org.
Articles & Departments
The First Issue of Public Roads
IDAS Integrates ITS Into Planning Process
Turbo Architecture
Communities of Practice
Middle School Students Design Future Cities
The Partnership Initiative
An Australian Road Review
Advantages of the Split Intersection
One Mile in Five: Debunking the Myth
National Transportation Week
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