For years, PMINJ volunteers have supported Future City.
Future City's mission is to provide a fun and exciting educational engineering program for 6th, 7th & 8th grade students that combine a stimulating engineering challenge with a “hands-on” application to present their vision of a city of the future while solving a current real-life “challenge”
Students start in the fall and present their city at the NJ Regional Competition in January. In recent years the regional competition has grown to over 500 participating students, teachers, and mentors. Feedback from both students and teachers has been exceedingly positive, with exclamations of an excellent engineering experience!
PMINJ is proud to partner with NJ Future City, and to support it on its mission to advance STEM learning in Middle Schools. You can help now by volunteering today!
Send your interest to Jonathan.Rice@pminj.org or David.Vincenti@pminj.org .
See additional details from the FutureCity Coordinator
Pictures from the 2020 competition.
See pictures of PMINJ participation in past years
North NJ
Central NJ
South NJ
For more information on mentoring, contact: Mentor Coordinator: Jacqueline Nam - mentor@futurecitynj.org
Judging coordinator: Andrea Almeida - judging@futurecitynj.org
Above the Current - Design a floating city that keeps its citizens healthy and safe
Floating cities have captured our imaginations for thousands of years. As long ago as the 7th century BC, Homer described one in The Odyssey. But now, floating cities are more than a fantastical idea: engineers, scientists, and architects are making them real. It’s predicted that by the end of this century more than 500 coastal cities around the world will be underwater because of sea level rise. Massive storms fueled by climate change will further threaten flooded coasts.
In recent years, scientists and engineers have been building prototypes of floating cities. Floating cities can rise along with sea levels and ride the waves of big storms. If floating cities near coastlines become a reality, then coastal ecosystems can be restored to act as natural flood barriers. In some cases, floating cities are extensions of existing cities, in other cases they are completely independent.
Today’s experimental floating cities use cutting-edge technology and clean energy to house people comfortably and provide everything they need. Built with materials that have neutral or beneficial impacts on biological systems, they are designed to start healing the damage done to the ocean as well as keep their residents safe and healthy. The students’ challenge:
Design a floating city and provide two innovative examples of how your floating city works and keeps its citizens healthy and safe.