Competition Information

Date: Saturday, January 17, 2009
Location: Rutgers University, Busch Campus Student Center

City abstracts are not due with the essays and can be submitted
with the SimCities at the December deadline!

Teachers:
I hope everyone is off to a running start with this year's competition. Our first submission is only two weeks away (11/17). This first submission is just the technical essay, and the preferred method of submission is via email of your Microsoft Word files. In the subject line of the email, state your school, team, and submission. So it should read as such:

Subject: ABC Middle School, XYZ City, Technical Essay

The Word file should be named: XYZ City_tech-essay.doc

Do not forget the city abstract is now due with your SimCity submission in December (the same submission and file naming convention applies). These files should be submitted to our judge coordinator, Matt Lunemann. His email address is:

lunemann@gmail.com

Submission on this day needs to be received no later than 5pm. Received emails will have a time stamp so do your best not to work up until the last minute and test this, as anything received late is accompanied by a penalty (see rules).

What I require from every teacher no later than Monday, November 10th is the following information, preferably in Microsoft Excel format (If you do not have Excel, Word is fine):

1. School Name
2. Teacher Name
3. Mentor Name (if you do not have one yet, please write "n/a")
4. How many teams are planning to participate from your school
5. The city name for each team.
6. The names of the three (3) students and one (1) alternate for each city (there are no team names, your city name is your team name). Alternates are not mandatory, but they are recommended.

When we have a total count for teams we can then determine if a maximum number of teams per school is required. If this is required schools are responsible for holding their own "mini" competitions to reduce their number of teams.

Details will come later concerning your SimCity submissions, however they are most likely going to be required via CD/DVD. Any questions or concerns please let me know. Thank you.

Submissions should be sent to:

Matt Lunemann
Judge Coordinator
lunemann@gmail.com
45 Scott Drive
Hillsborough, NJ 08844

Please make essay submissions in *.doc format.
All submissions should include a self-addressed,
stamped postcard to return as confirmation of receipt.

Get Involved

The New Jersey Future City Competition will be held on Saturday, January 17, 2009 at Rutgers University Busch Campus Student Center.

The Future City Competition is a part of the National Engineers Week activities; the program was developed for 7th and 8th grade students to help them discover and foster interests in math, science and engineering. The team that wins the regional competition will receive an all-expense paid trip to the national finals in Washington, DC in February 2009.

Volunteer
Before the Event
Judges: We need people who are willing to take some time on their own and help us to judge the SimCity cities and the essays. Please contact Matt Lunemann at lunemann@gmail.com.

Mentors: We need engineers who are interested in becoming engineering mentors for school teams; this is not a large commitment unless you want one and only teams that live close to your home or work (personal preference) are assigned. Please contact Maysill Pascal at Maysill_Pascal@golder.com.

Event Day
Volunteers: We need folks who are willing to man the registration booth, input judging scores, work in the “Chats with Young Engineers” room, run the multipurpose room and general volunteers who help groups of kids get from one activity to the next. Contact Sarah Weissman at scweiss@rutgers.edu.

Support and Sponsor
General Solicitation Letter

Set Up a Booth
$50.00 - Part of the kids’ experience is to meet with engineering representatives who can chat with them about what they do so that the kids start to understand more about the possibilities.
$100.00 – Giving $100 will cover the cost of a booth and also give a special award in your company’s name.

Become a Sponsor
All sponsors levels include a booth and special awards if they wish, or they can request to sponsor a specific portion of the event (breakfast, lunch, t-shirts, etc.).

Diamond > $3,000
Platinum $1,001 - $3,000
Gold $501 - $1,000
Silver $301 - $500
Bronze $100 - $300

Checks should be endorsed to: ASCE-New Jersey Section and sent to Scott’s attention at the address below. The Tax ID number is EO-510-163-404, and we thank you for your support!

Very truly yours,

The NJ Future City Coordinating Committee

Scott Lubarsky
c/o HNTB Corporation
Wayne Plaza I, Suite 400
145 Route 46 West
Wayne, NJ 07470

FAQS

Click Here to view Future City National FAQs.

How can I or should I save my city?
My recommendation for all regions this year is to submit their entire region, via either CD or DVD to each level of the competition. If we submit the cities alone, any metrics that are dependent upon neighborhood deals - income, expenses - will change when the city is loaded into another region.

Even if the city is loaded in paused mode, the program is smart enough to notice that the surrounding cities are not there. If coordinators want to keep size down, they can submit their main city and the connecting surrounding cities, but I doubt any region is going to be bigger than 210 MB, which is the size of a mini CD, and I know they will be smaller than a 640 MB (74 min) or 700 MB (80 min) CD. Coordinators will need to plan ahead for this.

In the rules it says we need to have two connections to another city. What does this mean?
When attempting to make your 2 connections to other cities, David Davenport of the SimCity virtual committee says if your city has any neighbor deals, they need to include the connecting cities. If they don't include these connecting cities, they will lose that data and it will affect the income / expenses in their budget.

If they don't have neighbor deals, including the connecting cities is not important. What is important is that you show that you have 2 connections. In this case it can be a road that leads off the edge of your city. When you do this and query the road at the point of exit, a dialogue box will say that this is a connection to a neighboring city.


Saving a Sim City 4 Deluxe region and transfer to another computer:
When you save a Sim City 4 Deluxe region the game automatically creates a folder named Sim City 4 Deluxe on your C drive. That is where all your game files will be stored. If you want to move your region to another computer you must do the following.

1. Go to your C: Drive
2. Open "Program Files" folder
3. Open "Maxis" folder
4. Open "Sim City 4 Deluxe" folder
5. Open "Regions" folder
6. Right click and copy the region file you wish to transfer
7. Paste the region file onto your flash drive

Now insert your flash drive into the computer you want to transfer the game files to and follow these directions.

1. Go to "My Documents" folder (For Windows XP operating systems; if you are using an older version of Windows, then go to "Program Files").
2. Open the "Sim City 4 Deluxe" folder
3. Open "Regions" folder
4. Save your region into the "Regions" folder.
5. Now open the SimCity 4 Deluxe game and click the "Regions View Options" Icon, then click "Load Regions".

You should now see your region, open it up and you're ready to play.

2008 Competition

2008 marked the return of Future City to New Jersey. The competition was held at Rutgers University Busch Campus Student Center and hosted close to 50 teams from all over NJ. Students participating in the program were able to join in other activites including an engineering campus tour, Meet An Engineer, and watch the 'Building Big' series.

Future City is a great way to show 7th and 8th graders all the engineering disciplines that must work together to build a city. Last year, NJ.com came to the program; click here for their article.

For a glimpse of the activities from 2008, click here for the small video and click here for the large video.
QuickTime is required to run these videos. Download.

2008 Competition Photos:

Competition Contacts

Scott Lubarsky
New Jersey Region Coordinator
SLubarsky@HNTB.com

Sarah Weissman
NJ Competition Day Coordinator
scweiss@rci.rutgers.edu

Jean Hansen
Co-Competition Day Coordinator
Jean.G.Hansen@marsh.com

Ellen Yu
Public Relations Coordinator
ellenyugo@hotmail.com

Satish Patel
School Coordinator
Satish.Patel@jacobs.com

Maysill Pascal
Mentor Coordinator
Maysill_Pascal@golder.com

Matt Lunemann - submissions
Judge Coordinator
lunemann@gmail.com
45 Scott Drive
Hillsborough, NJ 08844

Jeff Evans
Judge Coordinator
jjevans@alcatel-lucent.com