Students from 43 South Florida schools are engineering their vision of cities of the future as they participate in the National Engineers Week Future City Competition coordinated by Florida Power & Light. Nineteen schools still need engineers to volunteer as mentors to students, and FPL is encouraging degreed engineers to contact the company for information on how to become a mentor.

(Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/FLTU015 )

Engineer mentors help their student team create a computer-simulated city, write an essay, make a verbal presentation and build a model of their future city between now and mid January.

Volunteers also are being sought to judge the digital cities in late November, the written essay in early January and the verbal presentations and models on Jan. 20. Judges are not required to be engineers and are given everything they need to judge the materials objectively.

Judges will pick South Florida's winning team on Jan. 20 at the regional finals at the John D. MacArthur Campus of Florida Atlantic University. The winning team will travel to Washington, D.C. to participate in the national finals to be held during National Engineers Week (Feb. 19-25).

National Engineers Week Future City Competition helps seventh and eighth graders understand how engineering principles apply in real life. It is coordinated in South Florida by FPL. For more information, contact the competition's regional coordinator at FPL by calling 561-694-3133 or by visiting FPL's Web site at http://www.fpl.com/ .

Florida Power & Light Company is the principal subsidiary of FPL Group, Inc. , one of the nation's largest providers of electricity-related services with annual revenues of more than $6 billion. The company serves 3.8 million customer accounts in Florida. FPL Energy, LLC, FPL Group's U.S. and international energy-generating subsidiary, is a leader in producing electricity from clean and renewable fuels.

  Schools participating in the 2001 Future City Competition

  Key Largo School               Key Largo
  Homestead                      Homestead
  South Miami Middle School      South Miami
  Citrus Grove                   Miami               needs mentor
  Madison                        Miami               needs mentor
  West Miami Middle School       Miami               needs mentor
  St. Timothy Parish School      Miami
  Miami Shores/Barry University  Miami Shores
  Miami Springs                  Miami Springs       needs mentor
  St. Agatha                     Miami               needs mentor
  St. John Neumann               Miami
  Jane S. Roberts Elemiddle      Miami               needs mentor
  Centennial                     Miami
  St. Bonaventure
   Catholic School               Davie
  Walter C.Young                 Pembroke Pines
  Apollo Middle School           Hollywood           needs mentor
  Seminole Middle School         Plantation
  Westminster Academy            Ft. Lauderdale
  New River Middle School        Ft. Lauderdale      needs mentor
  St. Jerome Catholic School     Ft. Lauderdale
  Deerfield Beach Middle School  Deerfield Beach
  Carver Middle School           Delray Beach        needs mentor
  Wellington Christian           Wellington          needs mentor
  Loggers' Run Middle School     Boca Raton          needs mentor
  Grandview Preparatory School   Boca Raton
  Eagle Landing Middle School    Boca Raton          needs mentor
  Woodlands Middle School        Lake Worth          needs mentor
  Middle School of Arts          West Palm Beach
  Benjamin School                N. Palm Beach
  Colmery Home School            Jupiter
  Jupiter Middle School          Jupiter             needs mentor
  Indiantown Middle              Indiantown
  Redeemer Lutheran              Stuart              needs mentor
  Stuart Middle School           Stuart              needs mentor
  St. Joseph Catholic School     Stuart
  Murray Middle School           Stuart              needs mentor
  Clearlake Middle               Cocoa               needs mentor
  McNair Magnet School           Cocoa               needs mentor
  West Shore Jr./Sr. High        Melbourne
  Seacrest Country Day School    Naples
  St. Michael Lutheran           Fort Myers
  Sarasota School
   of Arts & Sciences            Sarasota
  Venice Area Middle             Venice

  Competition overview

Students begin by building cities of the future using SimCity™ computer software donated from the Maxis Corporation, which allows them to experiment with where and how to integrate power plants, factories, parks, transportation systems, housing, schools and other components of the urban fabric. From their computer maps, teams will then build models of their respective cities that illustrate engineering concepts and futuristic ideas using less than $100 for materials. Recycling is encouraged. Teams also will prepare 500-word essays on how to build a communications system. Prior to the regional competition, volunteers will judge each team's computer city, map and written essay. The Palm Beach chapter of the Florida Engineering Society is a judging co-sponsor.

The FPL-presented portion of National Engineers Week Future City Competition will culminate January 20, 2001, at the John D. MacArthur Campus of FAU (Jupiter), where students will verbally present their future city designs and models to panels of judges. Each team member of the top three teams will receive individual prizes courtesy of FPL.

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SOURCE: Florida Power & Light Company