Decorah Middle School's "Future City" teams finish first and second in preliminary competition at State Future City Competition

Terremoto team members (l-r) Rebecca Anderson, Jaden Baker, Grace Hoyland, Ada Lovelace, Daniel Skrade, and Ella Grouws

Decorah Middle School's two 8th grade teams won numerous awards at the state Future City engineering competition, with one of the teams placing second in Iowa.

Decorah's "Terremoto" team won two of the four categories -- Best Virtual Sim City and Best Model — and received the "Most Innovative System Design" special engineering award. Decorah "Cienfuegos" won the "Most Diverse Infrastructure" award.

At the end of the preliminary round, the two Decorah teams placed first and second among 42 middle school teams. However, rules state that only one team per school can qualify for the Finals Round of the top five teams.  Terremoto represented Decorah in the Finals Round and just missed first place by one point, bringing home the second-place trophy.

Both teams will be featured at the Winneshiek Energy District monthly breakfast at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, February 19th, in the downstairs room of T-Bock's. The event is free and open to the public.

Terremoto team members include Rebecca Anderson, Jaden Baker, Ella Grouws, Grace Hoyland, Ada Lovelace, and Daniel Skrade.

Cienfuegos team members include Sophia Christman, Amelia Dugger, Sophia Gallentine, Erik Hjelle, Jake Magner, Mairi Sessions, and Ethan Stravers.

Future City, a national competition sponsored by the Cedar Rapids non-profit organization NewBoCo and national engineering firms, is part of the Extended Learning Program at Decorah Middle School.

Cienfuegos team members (l-r) Ethan Stravers, Jake Magner, Amelia Dugger, Sophia Gallentine, Mairi Sessions, Erik Hjelle, and Sophia Christman (not pictured)