SOUTHFIELD—For the second straight year, a school from the Upper Peninsula has won the Michigan Regional Competition of Future City, the city planning and engineering competition sponsored in Michigan by the Engineering Society of Detroit.
Team Nouvassua, one of three teams sent to the competition by the Joseph K. Lumsden Bahweting Anishnabe Academy in Sault Ste. Marie, won the competition with their design, a floating city near the Bahamas.
A team from the academy also won the 2024 competition.
Future City asks sixth, seventh, and eighth graders to work in teams with an educator and a volunteer STEM mentor to imagine, research, design, and build cities set at least 100 years in the future. The design challenge students are asked to solve changes every year to keep the competition fresh. This year’s competition, Above The Current, asked students to design floating cities to house people in coastal areas who may be affected by sea level rise over the next century.
Students complete four deliverables: A 1,500-word essay about their city, a scale model made from recycled materials, a 15 minute presentation and Q&A with volunteer STEM expert judges, and a project plan. More than 67,000 middle school students representing more than 1,800 schools from across the United States, plus Canada and China, compete in 37 Future City regional competitions.
All the cities in the Michigan competition featured advanced, sustainable technologies for economic development, housing, energy, transportation, and agriculture.
Some 23 teams made their initial presentations to judges from 9 to 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. Five top award winners were named, based on points earned on a standardized rubric. The three top point-getters made finalist presentations Tuesday afternoon to a distinguished panel of STEM experts.
The second through fourth teams were:
- Second place, Pierce Middle School, Grosse Pointe Park, Niami, a floating city off Florida.
- Third place, Light of the World Academy, Pinckney, Opportunita City, a floating city off the coast of Italy.
- Fourth place, Leon W. Hayes Intermediate School, Grand Ledge, Na Hoku Kai
- Fifth place, Scranton Middle School, Brighton, Isolaviva
The winning team will represent Michigan in the national Future City competition, being held in Washington, D.C. Feb. 17-20 as part of National Engineers Week.
About The Engineering Society of Detroit
Founded in 1895, The Engineering Society of Detroit is a multi-disciplinary society uniting engineering, scientific and allied professions to enhance professional development and foster excitement about math and science to produce our next generation of leaders. Serving this generation of engineers and fostering the next. For more information, visit www.esd.org.
For more information about the Future City nationals, visit https://futurecity.org/
Information about the 2026 Future City competition will be posted soon on the ESD website.