Future City Competition Draws Students &Engineers

摘要

Thousands of engineers annually volunteer to serve as mentors for students in the National Engineers Week Future City Competition~(TM). During the competition, engineers guide students as they design and construct future cities. They participate in order to help students better understand the engineering world-but the students also help their mentors gain perspective as engineers. "It's helped me not be so narrowly focused," says Tony Arikol, P.E., an engineering consultant in Baton Rouge, LA, who coached a team of middle school students from St. Thomas More School. The team won the state's regional competition and took second place in the national finals in Washington, D.C. "Sometimes you get tunnel vision. Young people are a lot more creative as thinkers. They help you look outside for novel solutions. And when you look for novel solutions, you find them."