By VICTORIA PRAY
Moapa Valley Progress
The Mack Lyon Middle School Future Cities class participated in the 27th annual Nevada State Competition on Saturday, Jan. 19 in Las Vegas.
The theme of this year’s event was “Powering up the Future.” Each team was to choose an area prone to natural disasters and create a unique power grid able to function during and after the disaster. Each city must be at least one hundred and fifty years in the future and solutions must be futuristic.
Each team picked their futuristic city location and name. They then build a virtual city using the video game software Sim City. Next the team uses engineering processes to plan how to solve this year’s problem. The students then build a model out of recycled materials and create presentation boards to give further details on their ideas. Finally, they must give a presentation that shows how their design work addressed the problem.
Three local teams competed this year.
The first team consisted of Ethan Witter, Joey Boss, Kash Burris and was assisted by Lincoln Evans and Jessa Freeman. They called their city Mozzafiato, which means breathtaking in Italian. It is located in Italy, a half hour from Rome on Lake Vernazza. This area experiences many earthquakes.
The team’s power grid included rechargeable highways through flywheels that turn due to the cars driving along the road. Kinetic walkways were designed throughout the city, solar paint is used as well as wind turbines tethered to the ground.
The second local team included Aubrey Wolfley, Hans Whipple and Marcus Shambaugh assisted by Izzy Guzman, Jorja Freeman and Alissa Vann. They named their city Etazini which means “United” in French Creole. The city is located on the Bahamian Island in a sparsely populated area. This area is prone to hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis. Internal conflicts are also common due to ethnic strifes with a large Haitian population. The team united the Bahamas and Haitian populations and countries through the Etazini Treaty. Their power grid included MFCs which are virus batteries, wave buoys that capture the horizontal force of tidal waves and solar panels. They use salt water to help in the process of keeping the power lines fluid.
The third team consisted of Adam MacFarlane, Isaac Thompson and Noah Leavitt. Their city is called New Victoria located on Langara Island off the coast of British Columbia. Frequent disasters in this area included earthquakes and tsunamis. The team used nuclear fusion made safe through salt and a chamber. They transmitted the power using Tesla ideas of transmitting power wirelessly and using copper paint to receive it in each facility. They also have tidal wave fences that capture the force of tidal waves as a backup power source.
Etazini made it into the top five and took third place out of the 21 teams that competed in the contest.
Mozzafiato received a special award for the best use of recycled materials on their model. New Victoria received a special award from Nevada Power for the best solution to this year’s theme: the best power grid system.
An additional award was given to an alumni student. Romeo Elenas received the Mentor of the Year award as well as a $100 Amazon gift card.
