Students from Middletown Area Middle School recently took home a third-place finish in the annual regional Future City Competition, but more than that, they developed creative and revolutionary solutions to combat global environmental and economic issues.
Future City is a program of DiscoverE, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing global resources, programs, and connections between K-12 students and engineers and STEM professionals.
As part of Future City, students use the Engineering Design Process and project management skills to solve a citywide sustainability issue. The challenge for the 2026 competition was “Farm to Table” and tasked students to design a city that eliminates food waste and keeps its citizens healthy and safe.
MAMS’s team members, which included eighth-graders Paige Berry, Henry Grayshaw, Adam Handwerk, Anthony Rivera Payamps, and Pyrce Seltzer, along with seventh-graders Carter Jarvis, Ethan Muza-Reigle, Caroline Rankin, and Alex Sharpe, created the fictitious, self-sustaining city of Brugskredsland, Denmark, population 1.4 million.
One of the team’s innovative solutions for food sustainability included designing a living lab garden on the roof of the city’s stadium. The garden is used to supply restaurants with fresh food, and local universities use the garden to pilot cutting-edge innovations in food production and packaging.
As a solution to eliminating food waste, homes in Brugskredsland feature Artificial Intelligence (AI) smart refrigerators and pantries that let citizens know when food is close to spoiling and generate meal ideas to use the food. The city also uses technology that can provide recipes and cooking tips to increase cultural awareness and appreciation. Composting is also an option for residents, either for personal use or as a city buy-back program. Residents can also discard compost using the city-wide pneumatic chutes.
Team scores were based on an essay, project plan development, city model, presentation, and questions and answers with judges.
Mr. Trevor Davis, Gifted Education Teacher, said he saw growth among the students, and to him, that is the most important part of the competition. He added that team members all brought different strengths to the project, whether it was writing, research, or design, and that collaboration is something students can apply to any area of life.
Thank you to teachers like Mr. Davis, who are inspiring the next generation of great scientists and engineers, and for initiatives such as Future City and DiscoverE, who believe in MASD’s mission of equipping students with the knowledge and skills to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
Pictured (from left to right) are Future City team members Caroline Rankin, Carter Jarvis, Alex Sharp, Anthony Rivera Payamps, Henry Grayshaw, Adam Handwerk, Pyrce Seltzer, and Paige Berry. Missing from the photo is Ethan Muza-Reigle.
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| Team members talk with judges about the self-sustaining city of Brugskredsland, Denmark. Pictured below is a model of the city. The team's drop down feature showing the city’s inner workings was a unique component not seen before at competition. |
