ITS Arizona is an annual sponsor of the Best Future Transportation System award for the Engineers Week Future Cities Competition. This annual event encourages middle school students in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) by presenting a set of technical challenges over a four-month season that each must address, culminating at a regional finals event. The technical challenge facing the students this year was public spaces. Students from schools throughout the state presented creative and innovative solutions for incorporating and managing public spaces that provide both public utility and recreational features.
This year’s winner of the Best Future Transportation System award was submitted by Joshua Anderson, Kaylie Nachtigal, and Sebastian Urdoi from Sunset Heights Elementary in Peoria. The students were supported by their sponsor teacher Ms. Lisa Gonzalez and their technical mentor Mr. Chris Newman. In addition to incorporating and managing public spaces in their future city, the team created a future personal and public transportation system that relies on human powered “cycles” for propulsion. Per the student “engineers” their future transportation system is described as follows:
“Our transportation system known as cytubular transport, opens up many spaces where roads would normally crowd public areas. Cytubular transport is based on the idea of having a moving pod attached to a cable or beam that is powered similarly to a bicycle. It is projected a safe distance from the ground that allows clearage from the surface and the pod. Traffic is avoided because there are no intersections or crosses directly on the same level. In case of an emergency there are safety features. One feature is that the pods lock into each other upon impact.”
ITS Arizona recognizes and congratulates the efforts of all the teams that participated in the 2016-2017 Engineers Week Future Cities Competition. The Future Cities Competition continues to challenge youths to think about how our lives will change in the future and how we can solve engineering, design, and planning challenges by thinking different.
