The Berlin Middle School’s Future City team won five awards for their design, “Padres Paradise,” at the Capital District Regional Future City Competition in Albany last Saturday.
The competition took place in the Armory at Sage College, where this year’s challenge was to “Electrify Your Future.”
Teams were tasked with imagining and designing future cities that are fully electrified and powered by energy sources designed to keep their citizens and the environment healthy and safe.
Future City is a cross-curricular middle school Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) competition. Its annual event brings STEM to life for the students, who design a futuristic city with innovative solutions to some of today’s most pressing sustainability issues.
Future City’s website describes the competition: “Students present their vision of the future through a 1,500 word essay, a scale model of their city (built with recycled materials), a plan to help keep their project on track and a short presentation to a panel of STEM professionals.”
Students are asked to address an authentic, real-world question: “How can we make the world a better place?”
This year the Mountaineer team took 4th overall. They brought home awards for: Best Question and Answer Session; Best Design and Construction of a Bridge; Best Visualization; and Best Transportation.
Berlin’s team of Jamie Halpin Jr., Brave Morstad, Luke Turetsky and Damon Vickery presented in front of two panels of engineers at the Sage Armory. The BMS Future City team members not in attendance but played an important part in the planning, design and building process were Greyson Sorbello, Tristan Laird, and Easton Montanye.
BMHS teachers Mrs. Amanda Hayes and Mr. Brendan Scannell, along with STEM mentor Mr. Christopher Hayes of Wm. J Keller & Sons Construction coached the team.
Berlin’s State Senator, Jake Ashby, was in attendance and a part of the award presentations. Senator Ashby expressed pride in the Mountaineers and their representation of Berlin at the competition
The team and coaches look forward to competing again next year. Middle school students interested in joining the team should contact Mrs. Hayes or Mr. Scannell.