As part of Bayside's ongoing community commitment, we are currently volunteering in the Tampa Bay Regional 2007-2008 Competition for Future Cities. The competition focuses attention on the extraordinary potential of 12 to 14 year old girls and boys to become America's next great scientists, inventors, and engineers. The competition requires participating students to use their creativity, ingenuity, and, above all, their knowledge of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to perform 6 specific projects - the most exciting of which is to construct a scale model of a city as it might exist at least 100 years from now. This city should be a "real" future city that uses student-envisioned scientific and technological breakthroughs to meet its citizens' needs.

Bayside's Engineer mentors include Jeff Siewert, Kimberly Neal, and Bill Pittsley along with Kim DeBosier volunteering as a judge for the competition. As Engineer mentors, they act as Project Managers to the student teams while providing general technical information on engineering design issues. Project Manager duties include scope control, work planning, deliverables, and periodic review. They also help the students to brainstorm and suggest possible alternatives, but the students make the decisions.

The mission of the mentors is to teach the students the value of seeing their project through to completion and to help them understand what they will gain from designing and building their city of the future. Future City will give them an introduction to different types of engineering, from civil to electrical, chemical to mechanical, and environmental to computer. It will also teach them skills such as writing, public speaking, teamwork, time management, problem solving and new computer skills. Above all, they'll find it fun since it allows them to use their imaginations.

The model and presentation judging will take place on Saturday, January 19th, at Thurgood Marshall Middle School in Pinellas County.