Kids, Creativity...and Baby Jay! All in a Day at This Year’s Future City Competition™ - Great Plains Regional

The KU Student Union in Lawrence was the site of the National Engineers Week Foundation’s 2009-10 Great Plains Regional Future City™ Competition on Saturday, January 26. And according to our contacts, the designs were inspired and the future looks bright indeed!


From a city named Tomotto, where tomatoes are the primary export and the leaders are Tom and Otto, to a fanciful city on the moon named Apollo, these cities of tomorrow were envisioned, designed, and built by teams of imaginative middle schoolers.

This year’s competition attracted 57 teams, most from Kansas and the Kansas City Metro Area, although we know of at least one team from as far away as St. Louis. The challenge for these seventh and eighth graders: Design affordable housing for those most in need, while adhering to LEED recognized green building standards, with an emphasis on energy efficiency and a low carbon footprint.

GBA’s Suzanne Berkey judged the GBA-sponsored “Mother Earth Award,” which recognized team Overbrook from Leawood (Kan.) Middle School for the most innovative use of recycled materials. While all teams recycle cans and bottles, Overbrook stood out for the creativity that was shown in each detail of their model, from artfully torn printed office paper decoupage used to create building exteriors to small pine branches that served as trees to enhance the landscape. All buildings in the model proudly displayed a plaque of LEED certification.

In addition to Suzanne, GBA participants included mentors Megan Walter, Kiel Johnson, and Scott Moeder, and judges Adam Stodola, Dave Mennenga, Kim Pearse, Matt Parker, and Tait Karlson.

The National Future City Competition is sponsored in part by the National Engineers Week Foundation, a consortium of professional and technical societies and major U.S. corporations. The first place teams in the regional competitions will travel to Washington, D.C. to participate in the national finals during National Engineers Week, February 13-16, 2010. More information is available at http://www.futurecity.org/.