Students from St. Louise School from Bellevue will compete in the 2010 Washington State National Engineers Week Future City Competition. The event invites 7th and 8th graders across the U.S. to create a city of tomorrow.

The students have been working all winter preparing a model, speech, essay, and computer simulation and travel to Seattle on Saturday, Jan. 23 to present their work at the Seattle Center.

Winners of the regional competition will go on to compete nationally in Washington D.C.

Future City, now in its 18th year, encourages interest in math, science and engineering through hands-on applications, and reaches more than 33,000 students in 1,100 schools nationwide.

Sponsored by the nation’s professional engineering community, Future City aims to stir interest in science, technology, engineering and math among young people.  Future City is the nation’s largest engineering education program and among the most popular.

Students work in teams under the guidance of a teacher and a volunteer engineer mentor to design and build a city of tomorrow. They create cities on computers using the SimCity 4 Deluxe software and then build three-dimensional, tabletop models to scale. 

To ensure a level playing field, models must use recycled materials and can cost no more than $100 to build.  Students write brief narratives describing their city and must present and defend their designs at the competition before a panel of engineer judges who test the depth of the teams’ knowledge. 

They must also write and conduct research for an essay of 700-1,000 words on “Providing an Affordable Living Space for People Who Have Lost Their Home Due to a Disaster or Financial Emergency.”