EXCEL ling in the Future

For the second time in three years, the EXCEL students from Islip Middle School competed in the tri-state National Engineers Week Future City Regional Competition and won first place. By taking the top spot, the students will now proceed to Washington, D.C. and compete in the national Future City Competition.

The contest, which is a national program sponsored by the engineering community, promotes technological literacy and engineering in middle school students and fosters an interest in math, science, and engineering through hands-on, real-world applications. The students spent months constructing a model of their future city, built to scale, using recycled materials with a budget of less than $100.

The theme this year was “providing an affordable, green living space for people who have lost their home due to a disaster or financial emergency.” The students worked as a team to build their three-dimensional city “Fa’a Filemu,” located in American Samoa and meaning “the way of peace,” before integrating the design and research results into an essay regarding the engineering challenge and solution, and presenting an oral report to a panel of expert judges.

Congratulations to the following students and their teacher Julia Johnson: Bryan Ramirez, Rosie Turner, Katie Barry, Hope Cunningham, Ethan Fields, Natalie Guinan, Andrew Hart, Annmarie Karmakar, Ryan Keller, Tessa Seidenspinner, and Lauren Sparks.

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