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ATSI Supports Local Future City Competition

National Engineers Week Future City Competition provides a fun and exciting educational engineering program for seventh- and eighth- grade students that combines a stimulating engineering challenge with "hands-on" application to present their vision of a city of the future.  

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.

ATSI's Director of Geomatic and Industrial Technologies, Karen Armstrong, serves as the WNY Regional Coordinator for this event, offering her time, knowledge and guidance to the participating teams. "Our students are enthusiastic, focused and highly motivated." says Ms. Armstrong. "They have a unique appreciation for this theme because they understand that it addresses some of the most pressing issues our society faces, especially with the situation that recently occurred in Haiti." Their work reflects the passion they feel and their commitment to trying to make the world a better place."

At this year's competition, a team of students from St. Mary's School in Swormville, NY won the WNY Regional Competition.  Their winning entry was a future city model named "Mihafy Adana" which means "sustain peace" in the Malagasy language and is fictionally located in Madagascar. The future city was composed of abundant green space and innovative technology. The team will now travel to Washington DC to compete in the 18th Annual Future City National Finals scheduled for February 13-17, 2010. The grand prize is a trip to Space Camp in Alabama.

ATSI's COO, Ronald Leong, serves as the winning team's engineer mentor. "My favorite part of the whole experience was watching the kids grow as individuals and as a team." said Mr. Leong.  "It's great to see the young students taking an interest in the fields of science, mathematics, technology and engineering; fields that national statistics suggest the U.S. is falling behind in."

The WNY Regional Future City Competition is entirely run by volunteers and financially supported by local corporations and Engineering Societies. ATSI thanks its employees Karen Armstrong, WNY Regional Coordinator, Ronald Leong, team Engineer Mentor and Sarah Swiatek, Regional Public Relations Coordinator, for volunteering their time and helping make the competition possible.

 

For those wishing to sponsor next year's event or volunteer as a judge or engineer mentor, please contact: Karen Armstrong or call 716-691-9200.

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