Students at the 2017 Future City Philadelphia Competition Envision the Urban Public Spaces of Tomorrow

Arora proudly served as a Silver Sponsor of the DiscoverE Future City Philadelphia Region Competition held on January 21, 2017. Future City is a national STEM-based learning competition that allows teams of students in grades 6, 7, and 8 to envision, design, build, and present a city that exists at least 100 years into the future.

Each year the students are given a theme that they must incorporate into their city. This year’s theme was “The Power of Public Space.” Students learned how public spaces can revitalize a city’s economy by introducing new businesses and increasing tourism as well as reducing crime, easing traffic congestion, improving pedestrian safety, promoting healthy living, improving the environment, and enhancing civic engagement. Students were then challenged to incorporate these concepts into their city designs.

The competition entails several phases including: the design of a virtual city using SimCity software; a city description narrative that describes the unique aspects of the city; a city model that students build to scale from recycled materials and has at least one moving part that demonstrates their future city; and a 7-minute presentation that allows each team to highlight what makes their city special.

Arora had several employees volunteer their time for different parts of the competition. Allan Stock, Senior Projects Manager and Bob Murray, Senior Vice President and Regional Director served as judges on the day of the event. Donna Guzewski, Senior Plumbing Engineer was a virtual city judge, responsible for scoring the SimCity component of each team’s submission. Christy Batchelor, Senior Marketing Coordinator participated as a City Description Judge, whose responsibility was to read and grade students’ essays prior to the event.

In keeping with Arora’s mission to Improve the Quality of Life by Rethinking Infrastructure, the firm bestowed a “Rethinking Infrastructure for Public Spaces” award to Lionville Middle School from Exton, PA. Lionville was also this year’s local competition winner with their city, Kopiena. Lionville later came in third place at the national competition held in February.

Arora congratulations Lionville and all the participants in this year’s competition.