Florida Students Win ASME’s Best Futuristic City Award at the Future City Competition Finals

(Back row, left to right) ASME President Julio Guerrero and Past President J. Robert Sims with members of the St. Hugh Catholic School team, the winner of the ASME Best Futuristic City Award at the 2016 Future City National Finals Competition.

A team of middle-school students from St. Hugh Catholic School in Coconut Grove, Fla., was named the winner of the ASME Best Futuristic City Award at the 2016 Future City National Finals Competition, which was held in February during Engineers Week in Washington, D.C.

The annual Future City Competition, which is managed by DiscoverE, challenges teams of sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders to plan, design and build cities of the future that incorporate a solution to a sustainability issue. The students work with a teacher and an engineering mentor to build tabletop scale models of their concepts using SimCity software. Winners of the regional Future City Competitions, which are held in January, go on to compete at the National Finals in February.

The ASME Best Futuristic City Award recognizes the use of futuristic engineering concepts into city's communications, energy, or transportation systems. The students from St. Hugh Catholic School, won the ASME award for their entry “Linna Puhtuse” (Finnish for “City of Purity”), a community on the northern coast of Finland where residents travel in vehicles inside a Hyperloop, a series of elevated, clear vacuum tubes, and energy is produced using a small micro-waste reactor, a wind- and solar-powered device that converts trash into a synthetic natural gas.

ASME President Julio C. Guerrero and Past President J. Robert Sims, who served as judges during the Future City Finals, presented the ASME Best Futuristic City Award to the 10 members of the St. Hugh team: Maximus Abadin, Matias Assis, Daniela Avecillas, Valentina Bustamante, Cristina Jugo, Chiara McCartney, Camila Moreno-Bo, Albert Sanchez, Isabella Scalese and Sebastian Quirch. Ana Salavarria, the school’s science teacher, and Maria Elena Soto, the team’s engineering mentor, also attended the competition.

For more information on the Future City Competition or to view the complete list of winners, visit http://futurecity.org/awards.