A group of students from St. Alphonsus School will travel to Washington, D.C. for a national engineering competition after bringing home first place in a local contest over the weekend.

Katie Arnold, Aaron Moll, Rob Gueldner and Raven Hall teamed up with their teacher Mary Kay Peters and volunteer engineer mentor Scott Moll to win the Wisconsin Regional Future City competition Jan. 12.

Students submitted an essay based on the theme "Rethink Runoff: Design Clean Solutions to Manage Stormwater Pollution." Students were also asked to create a virtual model as well as a physical model using recycled materials.

They presented and defended their designs at the competition before a panel of engineer judges, who tested the depth of the team's knowledge.

The national contest will be held Feb. 17-23 after more than 33,000 students from 2,200 teams across the country participated in the regional competition.

The Future City competition is a program of the National Engineers Week Foundation, which works year-round to grow a dynamic engineering profession.