WASHINGTON, February 22 — A floating city of the future built on a platform ship five miles square — "Maropolis" — designed by students from St. Barnabas Catholic School in Chicago has won the ninth annual National Engineers Week Future City Competition™. Students Dan Cullina, 14, Katherine Durham, 13, and Meredith Messerle, 13, teamed up with teacher Jeanne Conway and engineer mentor Timothy Cullina, an environmental engineer at Van Leer Containers in Alsip, Illinois. The competition was held on Tuesday and Wednesday, February 20 and 21, at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill in Washington.

Maropolis travels the oceans of the world in the year 2500 under fusion power, studying and developing ocean resources. Ocean floor mining, fusion fuel extraction, materials engineering, electronics and communications are just a few of the technologies developed and utilized in the city. An extensive communications system includes jewelry with two-way speakers, sunglasses with TV lenses, antennas, computer routing centers, satellites, and a computer chip under each citizen's fingernail. Smaller floating islands supply farm fields, forest products, and recreational opportunities, such as Opposite Island, where the weather is always opposite what it is in Maropolis' real location.

"Editing our presentation was difficult," said Meredith Messerle, because we had so much information we wanted to include. Building the model took a lot of work too, but it was the most fun, because it's the future, and we could do anything we wanted to."

"When we started last fall, our goal was to just get into the top five in Chicago," noted Dan Cullina after the competition. "Winning the national championship is unbelievable."

Winning teams from 21 regional competitions held in January participated in the competition. An estimated 26,000 students participated nationwide.

The competition asks students to create — first on computer and then in large three-dimensional scale models — their visions of the city of tomorrow. Students work with volunteer engineer mentors who help guide the youngsters through the rigors of building a functioning city. Using the award-winning SimCity 2000™ software — donated by Maxis, a software firm based in Walnut Creek, Calif. — the students tackle politics, transportation, budgeting, energy needs, and other difficulties, and then defend their city to engineer judges at the competition.

Members of the St. Barnabas team receive a free trip to U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, donated by national finals host Bentley Systems, and an IBM Thinkpad, donated by IBM. Taking second place for their city "2001: A Space Reality" was Lewiston Porter Middle School in Youngstown, New York, from the Buffalo competition, which receives $1,000 for the school's technology program, donated by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Third place went to Drexel Hill Middle School in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, for "Aquarius," also a floating city. Drexel Hill, from the Philadelphia competition, receives a $500 scholarship for their school technology curriculum, provided by The National Society of Professional Engineers.
St. Mary Parish School in Hales Corners, Wisconsin, from the Milwaukee competition, and St. Wenceslaus Catholic School from the Omaha competition were also finalists on Wednesday. All 21 regional winning teams received an all-expense-paid trip to Washington for the finals.

Special awards sponsored by various engineering societies and corporations which were presented at a luncheon following the competition included:

· Best Use of Ceramics (American Ceramic Society) to St. Mary Parish
School; Hales Corners, Wisconsin
· Best Protection of Environmental Resources (American Consulting Engineers Council) to R.H. Terrell School in Washington, D.C.;
· Best Design for a Sustainable Community (American Society of Civil Engineers) to St. Thomas More School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana;
· Best Name for a Community (American Society of Civil Engineers) to Hazelwood West Junior/Senior High School in Hazelwood, Missouri for their city, "Kewlville Omega;"
· Best Design in Transportation Planning (American Society of Civil
Engineers) to St. Mary Parish School; Hales Corners, Wisconsin
· Best Aesthetic Design in Structural Engineering (American Society of Civil Engineers) to St. John Lutheran School in Rochester, Michigan;
· Best Indoor Environment (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers) to Leland Stanford Middle School in Long Beach, California;
· Best Futuristic City (American Society of Mechanical Engineers
International) to St. Barnabas Catholic School; Chicago, IL
· Best Energy Efficient City (Association of Energy Engineers) to
St.Barnabas Catholic School; Chicago, IL
· Best Communications System (IEEE-USA) to Medford Public School in Medford, Oklahoma;
· Best Essay (IBM) to St. Barnabas Catholic School; Chicago, IL
· Protecting Public Health and Safety through Competent and Ethical Engineering Practices (National Society of Professional Engineers) to St. Mary Parish School;
· Best Manufacturing Zone (Society of Manufacturing Engineers) to St. John
Lutheran School; Rochester, Michigan
· Best Transportation System (U.S. Department of Transportation – Federal Highway Administration) to Drexel Hill Middle School; Philadelphia, PA
· Best Use of Automation and Control in City Systems and Services (The Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society) to Sandy Valley Middle School in Sandy Valley, Nevada; (Las Vegas)
· Excellence in Systems Integration (Institute of Industrial Engineers) to
Frank D. Paulo Intermediate School 75 in Staten Island, New York;
· People's Choice award (selected by the students) to St. Wenceslaus Catholic School, Omaha, Neb.