Two members of Albuquerque Academy’s award-winning Future City Competition team (see story below) participated in the fourth annual White House Science Fair last May. Elias Garcia ’19 spoke with The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) about the experience. Read what Elias had to say here.
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Albuquerque Academy Students Capture First Future City Regional Winner’s Cup
1/29/2014
Three teams comprising ten Albuquerque Academy seventh grade students competed in the regional Future City Competition on Saturday, January 25, 2014. One team took first place and qualified for the national competition next month in Washington, D.C.
The goals of the Future City competition are to help students learn and practice the engineering problem-solving mindset, think innovatively, and develop teamwork, planning, and communication skills by completing a complicated series of tasks. An established national middle school competition for many years, 2014 is the first time that New Mexico has been a participating region. A total of 22 teams from 13 schools throughout New Mexico competed on Saturday at the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History.
The following Academy students received regional awards:
Xenex City — First Place Winner’s Cup
Elias Garcia, Bailey McCarthy, and Eric Swiler
City of Gak — Best Engineering Design Award
Gabriel Sandoval, Akshay Warrier, Kevin Xue, and Alex McLaughlin
New Baku — Best Globalization Award
Mauricio Ibarra-Towle, Aerlin Decker, and Gavin Hearne
The first place finish for Xenex City qualifies Elias, Bailey, and Eric to represent New Mexico in the national finals competition, February 14-19, 2014 in Washington, D.C.!
Congratulations to all, as well as faculty co-sponsors Robert Montano and Dennis Fazio, and to Stan Peplinski, USAF civilian scientist, who volunteered his time as team mentor. And a big thank you to all the parents and Academy faculty for their support, and to Stephen Cerda of the Academy technology department for providing computer hardware and software expertise throughout the project.
