ITS Arizona is once again participating in Arizona’s regional Future City Competition, sponsoring an award for Best Future Transportation System, and we need your support! For those not familiar with the Future City Competition, there’s a great summary from their website: https://futurecity.org/
Future City starts with a question—how can we make the world a better place? To answer it, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students imagine, research, design, and build cities of the future that showcase their solution to a citywide sustainability issue. The 2025-2026 theme is Farm to Table.
Participants complete five deliverables: a 1,500-word city essay; a scale model (or multiple model segments) built from recycled materials; a project plan, a presentation video, and a Q&A session with judges. Regional winners represent their region at the international Finals. After completing Future City, student participants are not only prepared to be citizens of today’s complex and technical world, but also poised to become the drivers of tomorrow.
As a part of our sponsorship, ITS Arizona develops a team each year of volunteers to participate in reviewing competition essays as well as in-person judging of the models and presentations. The competition will follow the schedule below:
- December 12, 2025 – January 17, 2026: List of teams applying for awards available are to be provided. Competition Essays will be made available to sponsors for review on their own time during this month. ~ 2 hrs
- January 17-22, 2025: Models will be available at the Burton Barr Library for judging on your own time. The team will narrow down the slate of presentations to be judged on the day of the competition. ~ 1 hr
- January 24, 2025: Morning attendance at the competition event at Grand Canyon University. This is a great chance to see the kids work very hard at their presentations and get really excited to meet people in industry! Opportunity around noon to hand ITS Arizona award out in person to the winning team with a photo opportunity. ~ 4 hrs
Participating in this event is an incredibly rewarding experience and the kids gain so much from our attention and care to judge their work! If you are interested in participating in the competition this year as an ITS Arizona representative, please email Deanna Haase at deanna.haase@kimley-horn.com by December 12th for more details!
