Click Here To See The 2024-2025 Regional Finals Results and Winners
The Future City Competition is a non-profit national competition sponsored by the engineering community to promote technological literacy and engineering to middle school students. Students also learn life skills such as problem solving, teamwork, research, written and verbal communication, computer literacy, and gain an increased awareness of community related issues.
The competition consists of five phases:
- Develop a project plan
- Write an Essay and Abstract about the City
- Make a physical model slide show
- Create a City presentation video
- Participate in Q&A session with a panel of engineer judges through Zoom
In 2013, the New Mexico region was awarded by the National program. Since then, 1,300+ students have participated in the competitions!
2025-2026 Theme
Farm to Table
Modern cities make it easy to get groceries from the store–but at a cost. The way we grow, package, and throw away food creates problems for our planet.
Consider all the steps it takes to get food to your plate: farmers grow it, trucks move it, stores sell it, and finally, you eat it–or maybe you don’t. But wasted food doesn’t just disappear in a landfill–food waste takes up 28% of the world’s agricultural area, uses 25% of all water used by agriculture each year, and creates about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The teams’ challenge: Design a city that eliminates food waste from farm to table and keeps your citizens healthy and safe.
Get Involved!
Compete
The regional competition is open to all public, private, and parochial Middle Schools (6th, 7th & 8th grade) in New Mexico.
The deadline for registration is Oct 31.
Volunteer
There are multiple ways for you to volunteer, including mentoring a school, volunteering at regionals, or judging at a regional or national competition. Please register online and we will get in touch with you soon.
Sponsor
Interested in learning more about financially sponsoring Future City? Please provide your contact information and we’ll get back to you soon. Thank you!
Important Dates
| Registration Deadline | October 31, 2025 |
| Essay Deadline | December 12, 2025 |
| Project Plan Deadline | January 9, 2026 |
| Physical Model Slides, Presentation Video Deadline and Regional Competition | January 17, 2026 |
Resources
A number of resources, for both competitors and mentors are available on the Future City HQ Website. These include more information about the research essay, presentations, SimCity, and much more.
Need a mentor? Please e-mail newmexico@futurecity.org and we will help you find one.
Previous Competitions
| Year (Program) | No. of Organizations | No. of Teams: Regional (Total) | Winning Team (Organization) | All Awards |
| 2014 | 14 | 22 (24) | Xenex City (Albuquerque Academy, NM) | |
| 2015 | 11 | 23 (36) | Nos Deleitamos (Deer Creek Middle School, CO) | |
| 2016 | 9 | 20 (27) | Delta City (Annunciation Catholic School, NM) | |
| 2017 | 21 | 22 (29) | Future Falls (Annunciation Catholic School, NM) | |
| 2018 | 18 | 33 (46) | Vida Sana (Annunciation Catholic School, NM) | |
| 2019 | 18 | 39 (50) | Cita Forte (Annunciation Catholic School, NM) | |
| 2020 | 15 | 30 (40) | Masfimiah (Annunciation Catholic School, NM) | Clean Water Theme |
| 2021 | 18 | 33 | Callisto (Annunciation Catholic School, NM) | |
| 2022 | 22 | 12 (45) | Meridia (Annunciation Catholic School, NM) | |
| 2023 | 10 | 34 | Beleza Do Rio (Monte Del Sol Chater, NM) | |
| 2024 | 10 | 34 | Tempe Gems (Monte Del Sol Charter, NM) |
Read more about our 2020 competition in the Taos news.
Sponsors
UNM School of Engineering
Future City Competition 