MARCH 2001  

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IEEE-USA Bestows First 'Best Communications System' Award on Oklahoma Middle Schoolers

by Chris McManes

Despite earning a free trip to the nation’s capital, three students from Medford (Oklahoma) Public School were finding it difficult to stay encouraged during the Future City national competition last month.

The team of middle schoolers had captured the Oklahoma regional championship less than a month before, but that triumph seemed like a distant memory as they watched team after team be recognized for special awards. Having competed in the preliminary round as one of 21 teams, they hadn’t made the top-five cut to compete for the national championship. Now it looked as though they were going to go home empty-handed.

But when IEEE-USA’s Best Communications System award winner was announced, defeated shrugs transformed into proud smiles from the team known simply as "Oklahoma." They accepted IEEE-USA’s recognition for designing the "most efficient and accurate communications system" gladly.

Medford’s communications network was part of their future city, Marzopia, which they envisioned to be in the middle of Mars in the year 17,945. Their creative vision of communication saw people thinking about what they wanted to say and having those thoughts transmitted from a chip embedded in their brains to one in their hands. There, a Holo-Com device would pick up the signal and send it to another person. Both users could look into their palms to view a hologram of the other person.

"This award really helped the kids’ egos," said Steve McDonald, who served as the team’s engineer mentor. "They were feeling a little bit rejected. This award has given the students something to take home and show for all of their hard work."

Medford, a K-12 school of about 300 students in north central Oklahoma, advanced to the national finals by winning the Oklahoma regional title in Oklahoma City on 20 January. Team members Michelle Jones, 13; Paige Hagerman, 13; and Jordan Dye, 12 were coached by McDonald and his wife Dana, a seventh- and eighth-grade math teacher at Medford, who served as the team’s teacher-sponsor.

"This is a nice academic achievement to add to some of the athletic achievements the school has had," Steve said. "Opportunities to recognize academic achievements don’t come along often. It’s nice for IEEE-USA and other groups to sponsor awards like this."

IEEE-USA President Dr. Ned Sauthoff and David Pierce, IEEE-USA Professional Activities chair, presented each team member with a plaque.  All national competition participants received a $100 U.S. Savings Bond.

The Future City Competition, introduced to National Engineers Week by IEEE-USA in 1993, encourages the next generation of engineers. Seventh- and eighth-grade students create their own vision of a city of tomorrow, working first on computer and then constructing three-dimensional scale models. An estimated 26,000 students participated nationwide in this year’s program.

For information on the 2001-2002 Future City Competition, visit the Future City web site at: www.futurecity.org.

Chris McManes is the Marketing/Public Relations Coordinator for IEEE-USA in Washington, D.C.  He can be reached at c.mcmanes@ieee.org.