Congratulations to Schalmont Middle School Engineering Club members on winning an award for “Best Air Transportation Design” at the Future City Competition held at Hudson Valley Community College this January. They joined other seventh- and eighth-grade students from around the Capital District in writing essays, designing computer models and building 3-D models of their ideal future city.

The club’s imagined city is named “City of Zion” and located on a planet named Gliese. Zion is an agricultural city that also has a university, dorms, shopping malls, rail systems, and makes use of solar power. Eighth-grader Victoria Candida said she discovered that scientists believe Gliese – a real planet in a solar system light years away from ours – actually may be able to sustain human life. (Candida is pictured with the club's competition presenters, Ariana Schrader, Annette Brown and Jennifer Morawski.)

This is the club’s third year in the Future City Competition and second year to receive an award for air transportation design. Last year, they earned an award for “Most Innovative Moving Parts.” Club advisors Andrea Bryson and Don Brandt, both MS science teachers, encourage students to participate in the competition because it helps them become more interested in math, science and engineering. The six Schalmont MS participants had to use their creativity to relate engineering concepts, such as nanotechnology and infrastructure, to the world around them.