North Carolina Region History
Future Cities is a cross-curricular, project-based engineering education program that challenges middle-school students to imagine, design, and build cities of the future. Participants learn about the career of engineering, use the engineering design process to address civic and social issues, and become change-makers in their own communities. It is a unique STEM program in that it focuses on the sustainability of the Earth’s resources. Being cross-curricular, there are aspects of science, math, research, writing, communication, and 21 st Century skills embedded within the program. It is closely aligned with many educational standards in the North Carolina curriculum.
The Future Cities Competition, under the DiscoverE organization umbrella, first began in 1993. The first competition in North Carolina, formed in partnership with the Professional Engineers of NC organization, was held in January 2002 at the NC Museum of History in Raleigh. As the number of participating schools began to grow, the competition moved in 2007 to NC State University.
A red-letter day for the North Carolina region happened when the 2012 winner from NC placed first at the National Competition in Washington, DC, and got to meet the President in the Oval Office.
During the COVID outbreak, the competition in NC took a break for 1 year. Competition resumed virtually in the 2021-22 school year with 14 schools/23 teams participating. Since then, the program in North Carolina, again an “in-person” event, has grown exponentially:
- 2021-22 14 schools/23 teams
- 2022-23 19 schools/29 teams
- 2023-24 26 schools/42 teams (over 1000 people attended competition day)
- 2024-25 47 registered schools
In 2022, the NC Future Cities program became a part of Scholastic’s NCASA Challenge Cup.
In the 2024-25 school year, a Future Cities program for high school students began, with 5 teams from North Carolina participating.
Much of the growth in the NC region is due to a grant received from the NC Legislature which helped us to reach out to bring this opportunity to learn about engineering careers to more schools in our state. This grant has enabled our region to award stipends to teachers/coaches, provide travel expenses for schools to come to the regional competition in January, as well as provide monetary prizes for teams. As a result of this grant, the participation of Title 1 schools has doubled.
Are you interested in learning more? Contact Mary Beth Liles: fc.nc.outreach@gmail.com.
2024-2025 Future City Competition
This year’s theme: Above the Current
Overview: It’s predicted that by the end of this century more than 500 coastal cities around the world will be underwater because of sea level rise. Massive storms fueled by climate change will further threaten flooded coasts. In recent years, scientists and engineers have been building prototypes of floating cities. Floating cities can rise along with sea levels and ride the waves of big storms. If floating cities near coastlines become a reality, then coastal ecosystems can be restored to act as natural flood barriers. In some cases, floating cities are extensions of existing cities, in other cases they are completely independent. Today’s experimental floating cities use cutting-edge technology and clean energy to house people comfortably and provide everything they need. Built with materials that have neutral or beneficial impacts on biological systems, they are designed to start healing the damage done to the ocean as well as keep their residents safe and healthy.
The student’s challenge: Design a floating city and provide two innovative examples of how your floating city works and keeps its citizens healthy and safe.
Competition Day 2025
Congratulations to all 35 of our North Carolina Future City Competition Teams and 3 South Carolina teams on a job well done!
We are proud to announce our 2024-2025 Winner of the North Carolina Regional – Pulau Karang from The Brawley School, IB. Now they are off to the national competition!
Congrats to the top finalists:
– 2nd Place – Neoterra (Morganton Day School)
– 3rd Place – Fuyu Toshi, Japan (STEM Skool)
– 4th Place – Jaloria (Fairview Elementary)
– 5th Place – Nagoya (Alston Ridge Middle School)
Also, congratulations to our winning team from South Carolina:
Amphitrite from Dreams Imagination and Gifts After School Academy, Williston SC
Click here to see all award winners!
Slide show of pictures from competition day
Last Year’s
Competition
Congratulations to all 42 of our North Carolina Future City Competition Teams on a job well done!
We are proud to announce our 2023-2024 Winner of the North Carolina Regional – Oriac from Morganton Day School out of Morganton, NC.
– 2nd Place – TBS6 – Electra-City, The Brawley School IB
– 3rd Place – Isla Puna, J. M. Alexander
– 4th Place – TBSV – Kyzyl-Su, The Brawley School IB
– 5th Place – Serenia, New Zealand, STEM Skool, Inc
Here is a video from the 2023-24 competition:
News & Resources
Sponsors
There are many different ways to sponsor the Future Cities program. Engineering professionals can volunteer as mentors or judges to support our students. If you are interested register at this link:
Companies can also sponsor the competition financially. Thank you to the sponsors for the 2024-25 competition! If your company would like to become a sponsor, please see our sponsorship letter below.
If you would like to be a future sponsor for this competition, here is the Fundraising Request Letter:
Contact Us
Co Regional Coordinator – Mary Beth Liles
Email: FC.NC.Outreach@gmail.com
Co Regional Coordinator – Charlie Townsend, PE
Email: north_carolina@futurecity.org
Industry Professional Recruitment – Beth Quinn
Email: beth@viasinfastructure.com