Future City 2025

Challenge: Above the Current
When: Saturday, January 11, 2025 from 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM (times approximate)
Where: Rutgers University – Livingston-Piscataway Campus

For years, PMINJ volunteers have supported Future City.

Future City's mission is to provide a fun and exciting educational engineering program for 6th, 7th & 8th grade students that combine a stimulating engineering challenge with a “hands-on” application to present their vision of a city of the future while solving a current real-life “challenge”

Students start in the fall and present their city at the NJ Regional Competition in January. In recent years the regional competition has grown to over 500 participating students, teachers, and mentors. Feedback from both students and teachers has been exceedingly positive, with exclamations of an excellent engineering experience!

PMINJ is proud to partner with NJ Future City, and to support it on its mission to advance STEM learning in Middle Schools. You can help now by volunteering today!

Send your interest to or .

Our presence includes:

• Represent PMINJ at “Meet the Professionals” session. In a Career Fair of sorts, engage students one-on-one at the PMINJ table to answer their questions about project management and what it might mean to them in the future. Also engage with them to help them identify that the Future City project started their career as a project manager.
• Serve as a presentation judge, scoring students’ models and oral presentations on campus at Rutgers. Competition Day runs from 8 to 4 with breakfast, lunch, and scheduled breaks. Judges are invited and encouraged to spend the whole day, but if you can’t, Future City will work with you to enable you to judge for those hours you can provide.
• Present Project Management 101 to event participants. Chapter members have been assigned to present to all students in small groups as they rotate through the learning events of the day. The PowerPoint presentation identifies the project management phases that the students should have experienced to deliver their projects for the competition.

See additional details from the FutureCity Coordinator
Pictures from the 2020 competition.
See pictures of PMINJ participation in past years

Be a Mentor:

1. What is a Mentor? – As a Mentor your job will be to coordinate with the team’s teacher to provide advice, guidance, and technical assistance to the students as they work on the various project deliverables. Much can be done virtually – a few hours a week. A program manual and Futurecity.org contain guidance.
   • Help students stay on task, focus on “big picture”, perfect submissions, polish their presentation and build their models.
   • Flexible commitment – typically 20 – 40 hours (much virtual) between now and January.
   • Training guides and other support are available
   For more information about your role as a mentor go to:
   https://futurecity.org/participants/mentors
2. Where are Mentors Needed? - Mentors are needed at Middle Schools throughout New Jersey. More schools request help weekly. For the current list of schools, and more information on mentoring, contact: Jacqueline Nam, at mentor@futurecitynj.org
   Mentors currently needed in:
   North NJ
   • Butler
   • Franklin Lakes
   • Morristown
   • New Milford
   • New Providence
   • New Vernon
   Central NJ
   • Fair Haven
   • Gladstone
   • Iselin
   • Pemberton
   • Somerset
   • South River
   • Watchung
   • Whitehouse Station
   South NJ
   • Folsom
   • Waterford
3. When? – Mentors are Urgently Needed for many Middle schools now through early January. It’s never too late to start supporting a school.
4. How to Start – Register on line at www.futurecity.org/register then contact: Jacqueline Nam, at mentor@futurecitynj.org to get paired with the Middle School of your choice.
5. What if I don’t have time now to Mentor? – No problem! Other volunteer opportunities also exist for Judging at the Competition Day – contact: Andrea Almeida, at judging@futurecitynj.org or Silvia Santos, at competition_day@futurecitynj.org to learn more. Also check: https://futurecity.org/participants
6. May I Share this Invitation – Absolutely! The need is urgent. Please share this information with friends / coworkers who may be interested in helping.

For more information on mentoring, contact: Mentor Coordinator: Jacqueline Nam - mentor@futurecitynj.org

Be a Judge

Judging coordinator: Andrea Almeida - judging@futurecitynj.org

• Remote judging of essays and other deliverables start November 10th.
• Additional Judges are needed on Competition Day.

This Year's Challenge:

Above the Current - Design a floating city that keeps its citizens healthy and safe

Floating cities have captured our imaginations for thousands of years. As long ago as the 7th century BC, Homer described one in The Odyssey. But now, floating cities are more than a fantastical idea: engineers, scientists, and architects are making them real. It’s predicted that by the end of this century more than 500 coastal cities around the world will be underwater because of sea level rise. Massive storms fueled by climate change will further threaten flooded coasts.

In recent years, scientists and engineers have been building prototypes of floating cities. Floating cities can rise along with sea levels and ride the waves of big storms. If floating cities near coastlines become a reality, then coastal ecosystems can be restored to act as natural flood barriers. In some cases, floating cities are extensions of existing cities, in other cases they are completely independent.

Today’s experimental floating cities use cutting-edge technology and clean energy to house people comfortably and provide everything they need. Built with materials that have neutral or beneficial impacts on biological systems, they are designed to start healing the damage done to the ocean as well as keep their residents safe and healthy. The students’ challenge:

Design a floating city and provide two innovative examples of how your floating city works and keeps its citizens healthy and safe.

The Students Learn to Succeed!

• Presentation Skills - Talking can be hard. The program helps to build confidence!
• Problem Solving - The program helps teach students that every problem is just waiting to be solved!
• What is Engineering - Many students don't understand what engineers do. We give students the opportunity to speak to and learn from real engineers!
• Teamwork - The program shows that no matter how hard you look, there is no I in Team!