Regis' Future Engineers Build Sim City

Four ambitious teams of seventh and eighth-grade students of The Regis School displayed their hard work and ingenuity before the judges at the Houston Regional National Engineers Week Future City Competition in hopes of winning a trip to Washington, D.C. for the national competition. Held on Saturday, January 19, at San Jacinto College Central, the Future City Competition gave the Regis boys a chance to present their very own city.

Volunteer engineer, Kelly Hammar, and science teacher, Monica Gutierrez, aided the teams in completing computerized designs of their cities on SimCity 3000, a scale-model of a city section, an essay and an abstract prior to the presentation. Each team walked away victorious in separate categories. Eighth-graders Cristian Govea, Richard Hammond, Sebastian Maarraoui and alternate Trey Guidry won “Best City—Human Engineering Design,” while Eric Dubec, Sameer Gulamani and Alex Ubaldo were rewarded with “Best Futuristic Design.” Seventh-graders Luke George, Scott McKinzie and Sam Milhollin received “Best City—Infrastructure Layout.” The other seventh-grade team of Forrest Gill, Stephan Salas, Hunter Williams and alternate Samir Mohamed snagged an impressive fourth place overall. The competition exercised the boys’ problem-solving abilities, teamwork, practical math, science and computer skills, while providing fun and excitement for everyone involved.