Volunteers Needed - ESD Future City Competition Mentors

ESD is looking for more mentors for its Future City Competition.  You may sign up as an individual mentor or as a team.  The SWE Detroit POC is Jess Engwis jlengwis@gmail.com if you want to help out.  You can also register on this website.  Closer to the competition, ESD will also be looking for people to volunteer as judges.

So, what is Future City Competition?

The Michigan Regional Future City Competition is sponsored by the Engineering Society of Detroit.  Michigan is one of the nation's largest regional competitions within a national program sponsored by the National Engineers Week Committee.

The Future City Competition is a national, project-based learning experience where students in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade imagine, design, and build cities of the future.  The program employs a team approach; students work on projects with guidance from an educator and a mentor(s).  Students design virtual cities using SimCity software; research and write essays addressing this year's theme - Rethink Runoff: Design Clean Soluations to Manage Stormwater Pollution; build table top scale models of their city using recycled materials; and present their cities before judges at the Regional Competition in January. 

The Michigan Regional Competition is scheduled for January 28, 2013, at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi.  Regional winners represent their region at the National Finals in Washington, DC, in February.  More details on the Future City Competition can be found here.

Since the Future City Competition can be integrated into the curriculum or be run as an after-school activity, team size varies greatly.  There must be at least three students on the team but the whole class can participate. 

What is the role of the mentor? 

The mentor is there to support the team as they explore engineering - asking questions, facilitating discussions, helping students refind their ideas, finding and accessing other resources, and providing feedback as the team works on their city.  Mentoring is about advising, advocating, teaching, coaching, and providing a guidance system.  By tying in real-life engineering experiences, the mentor can help the students connect the academic to the real world of engineering.  Keep in mind that the students must do the actual work - the mentor is simply an advisor.

Who can be a mentor?

Mentors can be engineers, technical professionals, architects, city or urban planners, or others who work in the engineering and technical community.  All one needs is enough technical background to understand the project and to be able to coach the team.  Mentoring can also be done by a team of two or more, making it possible for the mentor to be available more often to assist the students and reducing the amount of time each mentor devotes to the project.

What is the time commitment for a mentor?

The time of day that teams work on their project varies.  It can be during the school day or after school.  As a mentor, you would work with the teacher to find a time that works for both of you.  You should also be available via phone and/or email to answer questions.  Mentors typically spend an hour or two a week between September and January advising their team, as well as attending the Regional Competition.