Next On Q See what happen when local students are assigned to build a city of the future.

Also tonight, how to design a better lobby.

We'll tour some of the city's most creative spaces, and we'll show you why.

This local potter is inspire by creating jugs with ugly mugs.

It's all coming up next, so stay connected.

Welcome to On Q magazine.

I'm Stacy Smith.

It is never too early for young people to start thinking about a career.

And tonight we take you inside a local competition that could inspire a lot of students to enter the field of engineering.

Recently, middle school students from throughout the region were challenged to build a future city.

The event was sponsored by the Engineer Society of Western Pennsylvania and the Carnegie Science Center.

And tonight On Q, Tonia Caruso takes you insid the competition and explains why it is good news that these young people are interested in engineering the future.

They set up shop at Carnegie Music Hall early on a Saturday morning.

Nearly 150 middl school students from all around the region.

After months of planning, this is what they've been waiting for the chance to unveil and explain their ideas and the annual Future City competition.

The assignment this year may have sounded simple.

If you were given a five acre plot that had rundown gas station and shopping center, what would you do with it?

But let us tell you, the solutions were not.

We kind of had to design it around, what recyclable materials we had to use.

We constructed a feasibility plan and what we had to do a soil analysis and figure out the contaminants in the soil.

It's, the first through green city means we burn no fossil fuels.

There's no pollution, no pollution, and lots of ideas on how to make that happen.

We have the wind system which is consists of windmills that are nano blade technology, which means that even the lightest breez can cause the windmill to turn.

We have a hydroelectric dam.

Stirling engines, which focus, the sun's energy from parabolic mirrors into an engine or under the water.

It was supposed to be a bridge between Earth and Mars, but something went wrong.

It got caught in the atmosphere, and it went down into the Pacific Ocean.

We have underwater farming.

Hydroponic farming.

We have a power plant and, building that makes artificial sun.

The sun may be artificial, but there's one thing here that's real.

The lessons the students ar learning about problem solving.

And that's great news, says Alex.

Sciulli he's the first vice president of the Engineer Society of Western Pennsylvania.

I think one of my favorite definitions of engineering is engineers take ideas and make them turn them into realities.

The engineers are problem solvers.

They're, they're they're people tha try to take existing processes and make them better.

You know, but when it comes to attracting and educating new engineers, the United States isn' keeping up with other countries.

And we definitel are seeing a drop off last year.

I believe that of all the undergraduate degrees in the United States, less than 5% were an engineering or engineering graduates.

While countries like China and India and and others are graduating 40 and 50%.

So we think that that in a sense, America is falling behin in terms of of our technological prowess, our are, you know, what we want to what we want to do in the world and be a world leader.

And so, the trick is, how do we get our young people engaged in engineering?

Events like this certainly help.

Which is why the Engineers Societ and the Carnegie Science Center organized the regional Future City competition each year.

And if inspiring new engineers is the goal, there's plenty of success in this room and plenty of unusual ideas.

These students from Holy Rosar in Homewood designed their city to conserve water.

We have the bowed valves on housing, which when the water when it rains, the water is collected here.

And it comes out through this pipe right here and it goes underground where it's treated, and then it is pumped bac up to pump back into the house where it can be used for everyday uses, I guess.

And we also have the precipitation clone cloud maker, which creates clouds that catch the, the water whe it is evaporating into the sky so that we can reuse it for things that we need.

These students were more concerned about flooding.

What was kind of the concept you came up for your city?

Well, since we built it in, New Orleans and it's on an abandoned strip mall, s we just called it New Mallleans.

We thought it would be nice t just build it up in New Orleans and, like, rebuild it and get an idea of how to fix the flood problems.

This is our residential area, and it has, inner tube around it.

And inner tube, helps it when it starts to flood it helps it stay afloat.

The seventh and eighth graders from Saint Bed took a more holistic approach.

Our city's name in German means welcome home.

And that's the principle we build our city around.

We provide our citizens with a comfortable environment, a clean, a clean environment, a prosperous education system, free education and advanced economy and beautiful recreation.

One of the main principles was mixed use, which combines commercial and residential.

And as a result, people live where they work.

They walk to their errands, and as a result, there's less obesity too because people walk around more rather than rely on cars.

Plenty of judges walked around the hall asking questions and taking notes.

Each school then made a separate presentation.

And I've been a judge here for a couple of years, and it's always amazing, especially being an engineer for for as many years as I've been in the professio and watching young people get up and make a presentation as well as any project engineer I've ever had, ever worked with.

And, they do it without cu cards or scripts and so forth.

What to you was the mos challenging part of doing this?

Probably like, the presentation, getting all of our speeches to coincide.

And what was the most fun?

Probably, making the actual model.

I just like getting to paint and stuff.

I'd say building the model and building the different buildings and spray painting them.

And, like, we spray paint the hospital silver.

In the end, the day was filled with lots of fun and some important lessons.

Lessons in teamwork and creativity.

What we accomplished.

It's pretty amazing lessons in problem solving and determination.

And perhaps most important, we found quite a few in this crowd who say engineering is something they see in their future.

I'm really intereste in engineering and figuring out how, to solve problems and, figuring out, just how to make a cool city and, being with people that, also enjoy doing it to.

I always been interested in, in building and engineering since I was little.

And so is this something do you think you might like to do this in the future?

Yes.

This would definitely be something I consider a career in the future.

It's so much fun to watch, and it's incredible how these kids get involved in this.

And what it does is get some interested in the sciences and math and and how these things work.

And ultimately that the end goal is to is to get them interested in a profession, you know, in the, in the sciences or engineering.

What do you thin about what you've seen so far?

awesomely fantastic.

The work of the children.

are totally amazing.

You have nothing to worry about.

The future if your children is as good as this.

Now, several different awards were presented to the students at the event.

Saint Bede School and Point Breeze was declared the overall winner.

They'll now go on to a national competition in Washington, D.C., and the winner of that goes on to Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama.

And a few years ago, some students from the Riverview School District in Oakmont, I should say, won the grand prize.

And in the meantime, the Engineer Society is celebrating its 150 anniversary this year.

And part of their mission is really to get young people involved.

And as you saw in this project, they certainly do.

And the society also holds a different competition for high school students each year.

And Stacy, we saw we could have shot for five days there, and we only got to probably half of the cities that were built there.

And the students and just great involvement.

And really they had students from 40 different schools.

Five of the schools were from West Virginia.

Well, the amazing thing to me is the creativity that these young people have like that.

Absolutely.

And from those ideas, something else will be born down the road.

And that's what the Engineer Society says it's all about.

Tanya.

Thank you.

Sure.

Still to come with some local companies that put a lot of work into making a great first impression.

And we'll also introduce you to this Johnstown Potter, who takes pride in making mugs or other jugs with ugly mugs.

It's still to come, so stay connected.

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My parents started to get worried.

It's changed a lot now.

My doctor's been helping.

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It's awesome.

Heading off health problems before they began can hav other remarkable side effects.

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And we couldn't do it without you.

The members of WQED.

The average American spend approximately 62 minutes a day waiting in line at a food court, in a car or in a bank, just in general.

Waiting the waiting roo or the lobby of most businesses is also where potential clients get their first impression of a business.

Well, three local companie decided that first impressions should also be a good impression.

On Q, contributor Carol Lee Espy.

Your mother was right when she told you that you only have one chanc to make a good first impression.

And these three local businesses took that to heart when they designed their lobbies.

It's unusual to see a forklift truc the middle of a company lobby.

It is.

And it's the first thing you see when you enter Bally Design, located in the Confluence Building on Pittsburgh's North Side.

We did have one person who was moving some equipment around and wanted to come in and actually see if he could borrow it for an afternoon, and I said, if you could make it run.

Good luck to you because there's nothing inside.

It's just all styrofoam.

Why is there a styrofoam forklift in the lobby?

Well, Bailey design is the actual drawing board.

The step before manufacturing of the product.

We try to present in our lobby a diverse cross-section of our work, like thermal imaging cameras for firefighters, kitchen gadgets.

Even the lobby furniture is part of the display of the furniture that we use actually allows you to, write whether you're right handed or left handed.

The end pieces rotate.

There's a beverage holder on one, and the front chairs are on wheels.

Their clients are National MSA, Lincoln Electric, Black and Decker, craftsman, OXO international, Adidas.

Daewoo.

Stanley.

Genie.

Many names that people recognize and see in retail stores every day.

And yet Bailey Design chooses to stay here.

We choose to be based in Pittsburgh, and we find that what we do and how we do it really is representative of the city.

The workspace has the old Pittsburgh industrial feel solid and built to last.

And as a design company, it's fitting that they're located on the bottom floor.

It's the start of the innovation and the creative process for many clients.

In that same building upstairs is another interesting lobby, which makes waiting a game.

My name is Abu Noaman.

I'm a CEO of Elliance Inc.

and we've been in business for about 12 years.

We're an e marketing company that helps companies figure out how to get the most out of their web experiences and their websites.

Elliance didn't want to hav just your average waiting area.

They wanted something contemporary.

Media art is the is the cutting edge of art, which really sort of brings technology and art together.

And it just was logical for us to really put media art piece in the lobby for us.

The piece is a delightful, interactive, computer generated exhibit.

It's driven by you and your shadow.

The camera mounted on the wall across from you, tracks your shadow on the screen.

It sends it t the computer, and the computer sends these flowers down to play with you.

They follow your shadow and gather around you.

Like I said, delightful magic.

What happens is when people walk in, they're like a little shocked a little bit.

They're like, what's going on?

And then there's like, something is going on.

Something is tracking me here.

It turns into a me and my shadow moment.

It makes you forget you're waiting in the lobby.

It's a good wa to try to get your frustration better than a, you know, ping pong table or, you know, or foosball or something like that.

People are just trying to sort of get get some of their energy out of this piece here.

Once you've experienced the lobby, you walk into a work environment that's filled with light, collaborative workspaces and a great view of Pittsburgh that you can only get on the North Shore.

The river walkway is right below us.

The railroad's right on the side of us.

And then you have this highway system, right?

You know, to the other side.

So we really felt like we were in the middle of something really magical here with.

What?

Just up the road into the North hills is a lobby that has a very different function.

And this is just.

Doctor Don Kailpela.

I'm a pediatrician in the Northland Division of Pediatric Lines.

Poor child.

Waiting to see the doctor can be very stressful.

And Doctor Kailpel was looking for a way to relieve that stress.

The custom built tank.

The platform is designed so the kids can get up close and really get a good look Some of the catfish there as you notice, are quite large.

And they've been with us for quite a long time.

We have some frogs in there that whenever we started out they were there.

Size of your thumbnail.

Now they're really quite large.

Sort of like, you know, pediatrics.

We just follow things as they grow.

In the meantime, nerves are calmed and the kids learn a little something about marine life.

Well, maybe we tell them don't go fishing, but, they bang on the side of the tank.

And so far, we haven't had any, any fish die as a result of trauma.

So.

So far, so good.

And while we were at the doctor's office shooting that fish tank piece, there was a gentleman there that remembered the fish tank from when he was growing up.

And he likes to take his kids there to the doctors and check up on the fish.

I wonder if they're the same fish that he saw.

I might have been findin Nemo might be in there as well.

The lobby wit the computer generated flowers.

Can they change it to something else?

They can change it to anything.

In fact, when that when that particula program needs to be refreshed.

Torpedoes fall down on you.

And so they quickly hit the button.

The flowers come back again.

But for a whil you get bombarded with torpedoes that right away.

Can you imagine going in for a job interview when you're doing this in front of a computer screen, but you do forget that you're waiting.

That's that's the key.

That is the key.

Carol.

Thank you.

Coming up next, a local potter who takes pride in crafting ugly jugs.

We're going to show you why.

He says the uglier, the better.

It's still to come.

So stay.

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Our next story is about a local potter.

Jim McDowell studio is located in Johnstown, and he makes all of the usua functional bowls and mugs that you might expect from someone who specializes in pottery, but he also does some very unusual work inspired by his ancestry.

Jim makes jugs with what he says are some pretty ugly mugs On Q Chris Moore has a stor The process of making a face that starts with wedging up some clay with some nice clay.

This is Jim McDowell.

He's a ceramic artist, a potter.

Every time I do a joke, it starts with the nose.

I have a couple black friends that said, Jim, you make the nose is ugly.

I said, the jug is supposed to be ugly today.

Jim is making face jugs in his studio located in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

If you make a pretty one, you defeat the purpose.

The purpose is to be ugly.

It's almost like the Irish prayer.

May you be in heaven five minutes before the devil knows you're gone.

Jim is a self-taught potter who calls himself the Black Potter.

That's because his inspiration comes from America's slavery past.

The idea of putting faces on jars of jugs has been around for a long time.

For centuries, potters from Europe, Asia and Latin America have made face vessels for ritual and funeral use.

But when the face jugs were made in the United States in the early 1800s, white potters made the faces ugly to keep children away from the moonshine.

However, for slaves at that time, the jugs were scary for different reasons.

Great, great great Aunt Evangeline.

who was in the mineral famil was the actual slave in Jamaica.

And she said that the slaves actually made these as grave markers because they were not allowed to have a grave marker.

The face jugs were given to you while you were still alive when you died at your gravesite or wherever they buried you.

Would you not like to have grave marker?

They put the face jugs.

Now the jug is sitting ther in the in the cold and the rain.

The water.

So condensation, the heat, the coal.

It broke the jug.

So they believed that when the jug was broken, your spirit was released.

To make the jugs.

Jim uses a pottery wheel.

First he throws the clay into a basic pot.

Then, by hand, he forms the face, always starting with the nose.

I know these are not straight like white people.

They're this way.

And so I do them.

And sometimes I just put a big slab on and they'll poke it and then press it out.

But the jug never starts with a preconceived notion.

Face shields, from my, perspective, are to help the dead to go to heaven.

So hence the ugliness when somebody comes to me and said, the jug is ugly.

I just want to kiss them because it's like, thank you.

That's why I made them to be ugly.

They have to be ugly.

And since the jugs have to be ugly to scare evil away, Jim uses many artistic techniques.

He puts broken glass into the eyebrows so that when the jug is fired in the kiln at high heat, the glass melts and streams down the face like tears.

And then for an even more frightening look, the eyes are poked out and broken.

China is used for teeth.

Okay now let's go down to the cigar.

The cigar is important because in society.

In slave society, a man could be 85 years ol and he's still considered a boy.

The cigar was important into the slave pottery, into the face jug.

Because it's like sticking it to the man.

Also on the jugs, there are writings free all the slaves.

Do not judge the color of my skin.

It's another way Jim connects with his slave heritage by honoring the 19th century black potter from Edgefield, South Carolina.

When I started doing a little research about the facials, I started to learn about a slave potter named Dave, who could read and write back during the day before.

During, and after the Civil War.

Dave was owned by some people that had a newspaper company.

So not only did they teach him how to read and write.

They taught him how to sit tight.

He made huge jugs, so big jugs for storage, for food.

And Dave wrote anti-slavery sentiments or thing that were going on in that day.

So in honor of Dave on the back of my jugs I write things like Nat Turner's coming and Stay in the ligh and things like that, or my jugs to keep that a lot.

One of my best saying is I can read.

People don't understand.

There was a time in this country for reading for a black person was not done.

So I do that because I want people to understand.

I can read now sometime.

I deliberately misspelled the word.

You know, like read and write, rite?

Because they were literate to a certain degree.

Not totally, but I do.

I do the writing on there because I want to stay connected.

From the reading of the clay to the high temperatures of the kiln.

It usually takes three weeks to finish a series of 10 to 12 jugs.

Each one an artistic expression of Jim the Black Potter.

I would hope that once you understand why I make the joke, you would understand that the jug a reflection of this person, me, through all the adversity.

The jugs reflec what's happening into me today.

If I'm depressed.

It's on the jug.

If it's a bad day, it's on the jug.

If I'm happiest on the jug, I write it on the jug.

And the jugs make me feel good because it allows me to freely express myself.

I'm not, following the form or following somebody else's footstep, but I'm doing something that Davedid or other slave potter did.

And now I'm taking it into the 21st century.

And we're told it to.

Jim says if it looks like all of the jugs are males, for the most part they are.

But Jim recentl did start to make some of them a little more feminine by putting wings on them.

Also, a Jim does teach pottery.

His lessons include information about slavery and slave pottery.

And if you are ever in Johnstown, well he says he'll welcome visitors to his studio and to his art gallery.

And you can find out more by logging on to our website, wqed.org.

Click the On Q logo on the first page.

Thank you for watching.

We hope that you'll join us again tomorrow night, when we'll catch u with some high school students who are actively working to curb heroin and other drug use in local communities.

That's tomorrow night at 7:30.

We hope that you'll join us.

Then stay connected and have a good night.