They built this city from recycled materials
N.B. middle school students design, build city 100 years into the future
BY JENNIFER AMATO Staff Writer

JENNIFER AMATO Fifteen eighth-grade students from Linwood Middle School in North Brunswick will compete in the Future Cities Competition at Rutgers University on Saturday. Seen here is one of the recycled-material entries, the city of Gaia.

NORTH BRUNSWICK - Fifteen students from Linwood Middle School will participate in the Future Cities Competition at Rutgers University on Saturday.

The project uses the computer software program SimCity 3000 to design a city that could exist 100 years into the future. The students must build a replica of their city, using recycled materials and a $100 budget, based on population, percentage of crime, taxes and loan availability. The groups act as the mayor, creating a city attractive to the fictional Sims residents, who can choose to move out of the neighborhood or file complaints before the city board if they are unhappy with their living conditions.

"Not having done this before, it's amazing what this program does for the kids," said eighth-grade science teacher Danita Guarino,who had her students complete the project for a graded assignment. "If they didn't build a highway or didn't build residences, the Sims wouldn't want to come live there. It is very funny, very engaging."

The project is applicable to the curriculum, which focuses on energies, machines and motions, and implements math and social studies skills. It also teaches nanotechnology, which involves the creation of materials, devices and systems through manipulating matter at the nanometer length scale, meaning that scientists and engineers are essentially working with atoms.

Spencer Lin,Michael Razzano and Virginia Zhao named their city Sonan, which is nanos spelled backward. The group turned a Nescafé container into a residence and a day-care center, pipe cleaners into roads, a Pringles can and toothpaste box into the control center, a bowl and cup into a college, an oatmeal can into a water tower, construction paper into a school, and baby food jars, pingpong balls, bottle caps and a fan into a generator. A battery and wires are attached to the fan to make it move, and the city lights up.

The city also has iron pillars underneath, strong enough to reach the ocean, so that their island won't float away, using nanotechnology to build the beams.

"Today we see that we're running out of space, so we can start building on the ocean," Lin said of their city, projected to be built in the year 2156.

Students Joey Ikuss, Joseph Stefan and Manish Sreevatsava used cardboard, bottles, containers, metallic paint, egg cartons, paper plates and wooden sticks to build Gaia, named after the Greek goddess of Mother Earth.

"We are literally green with the plants and parks, and we also have a low degree of pollution," Ikuss said.

The students built a car dealership and factory with lights on one side of the property, with the residences on the other side. For a population of 70,000 people, they have three apartment buildings and a "subway system" in the design of a Line Chaser following a black line through trap doors. Nanotechnology was used in the levee system, which can raise and lower for "aesthetic and economic reasons," according to Ikuss, since the island will be open to ocean trade.

"It is also useful if there is a tsunami because we can change how we treat the tsunami," added Stefan, who said their system can detect the purity, pressure and depth of the ocean and isolate pockets of polluted water.

The students said the lessons reach beyond just designing a city. They said the project teaches creativity, conservation of materials, how to effectively work on a team, and the importance of depending on one another.

"Procrastination really affects you on this project," Stefan said.

A five- to seven-minute oral presentation on Saturday will discuss the group's specific design issues, features and key aspects of their city, accompanied by a research essay and design abstract.

The other participating students are Do Young Chung, Derek Dorsey, Sean Hudson, Matt Ingargiola, Justin Jajalla, Justin O'Dea, Julio Perez, Hansel Rodriguez and Jexsey Rodriguez.