Published: Tuesday, January 16, 2007 1:25 PM CST

MANHATTAN -- McPherson Middle School is among 60 teams competing in a regional Future City competition Saturday at Kansas State University. K-State is one of 38 regional sites nationwide in the competition.

The event asks students, working in teams and under the guidance of a teacher and a volunteer engineer mentor from the community, to design a city of the future and include a plan that helps meet a particular social need.

The McPherson Middle School students are eighth- graders, Drew Harger and Paul Burghart. The volunteer mentor is Steve Burghart, who is a CertainTeed engineer, and the teacher is Debra Vogt.

"The Future City competition introduces students to engineering and engineering related fields when they are taking the first steps of their future career path," said C.W. Harper, Kansas' Future City regional coordinator. "The competition also promotes creative thinking, organization and teamwork skills that will benefit them in any future they choose."

Students build their cities first on computer using "SimCity 3000" software, donated to each school by Maxis, a division of Electronic Arts, and then in large 3-D scale models. They must write an abstract describing their city and also write an essay. This year's essay topic is coming up with an energy strategy to include fuel cell systems to power a city of the future.

Engineers and professors from across the state have volunteered their time to serve as judges for the competition.

"I had the pleasure to serve as a judge in years past," said Richard Gallagher, interim dean of K-State's College of Engineering. "I was really impressed with the quality of workmanship on the students' models and their poise while making their presentations."

The public is invited to view the models prepared by all the teams, as well as the final presentations by the top five teams. The final round of judging will begin at 1:15 p.m. in Forum Hall at the K-State Student Union.

Presentation of the awards and the announcement of the winning regional team will be from 2:30-3 p.m., also in Forum Hall.

First-place winners will receive an all-expense-paid trip to the Future City national finals in Washington, D.C., Feb. 18 to 24, which is during Engineers Week. The grand prize of the national competition is a trip to U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala.

McPherson Unified School District 418
514 N. Main
McPherson, KS 67460
620-241-9400
It is the policy of McPherson USD 418 not to discriminate on the basis of sex, disability, race,
religion, color, age, or national origin in its educational programs and/or activities, nor in its employment practices.

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