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Chris McManes Engineer Mentors Sought for Future City Competition WASHINGTON (03 September 2003) — Across America, thousands of engineers volunteer annually to serve as mentors for students in the National Engineers Week Future City Competition. As National Engineers Week 2004 co-chairs, IEEE/IEEE-USA and Fluor Corporation invite engineers from every discipline to become volunteer mentors and help students get a better view of engineering. Interestingly, the engineers who guide the students from conception to design to construction of their future cities consistently say that one of their finest rewards is how the students give them a better perspective of their own lives. “It’s helped me not be so narrowly focused,” said Tony Arikol, P.E., an engineering consultant in Baton Rouge, La. “Sometimes you get tunnel vision. Young people are a lot more creative as thinkers. They help you look outside for novel solutions. And when you look for novel solutions, you find them.” “It makes me feel young again,” said Jean Eason, an electrical engineer and regional coordinator for the Dallas/Fort Worth area Future City Competition. “It’s invigorating. I’m struck by how concerned the kids are for the environment and for the future of the planet.” In the competition, teams of three seventh- and eighth-graders design and build model cities of tomorrow. The students, with the help of a teacher and engineer-mentor, must design a city that functions, write an essay and abstract, and defend their city before a panel of judges. Students begin their cities at the start of the school year, working during and after school and through holiday breaks. Regional competitions are held in January. First-place teams (including the engineer mentor) win all-expense-paid trips to Washington, D.C., for the national finals during National Engineers Week, 22-28 February, 2004. For more information, contact Carol Rieg, Future City Competition national director, at 877-636-9578, or via e-mail at CRieg@futurecity.org. Visit www.futurecity.org for a list of participating regions and regional coordinators. IEEE-USA is an organizational unit of The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., created in 1973 to advance the public good, while promoting the careers and public-policy interests of the more than 235,000 electrical, electronics, computer and software engineers who are U.S. members of the IEEE. The IEEE is the world's largest technical professional society. For more information, go to http://www.ieeeusa.org.
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September 2003 |