Last October the FHA was contacted by the father of a teenager at Centerville Middle School in Fremont who was on a team of kids entering an international contest to design a city of the future.
Each year the competition involves a specific element of urban planning and this year’s challenge was to design a floating city. The team thought visiting a floating home community would help them better understand the challenges involved.
The FHA Tour Committee arranged a tour focused on the infrastructure and unique aspects of our community.
The team spent an hour and a half on site looking into the structures and systems of our marinas. Tour guide Brad Hathaway was blown away by the depth and level of detail in the insightful questions they asked about such things as the dynamics of tides, currents and winds on floating structures and the strength of the sense of community.
The Future City Competition calls on students to use their creative, innovative imagination to apply math, science, engineering and technology in the design of a fully functioning metropolis in a unique environment — this year, a floating one!
The team of six 8th grade students designed and built a model to demonstrate their solutions to the daunting challenges and we just learned that their entry took First Place over 30 teams from across Northern California. Next, the team will head off to Washington, D.C. for the finals, in which entries from over five countries are competing.
Brad and his wife Teddie have launched a drive to help defray their expenses for the trip. Contributions would be welcome — contact Teddie Hathaway.