YORBA LINDA : 3 Vie for National Future City Award

Ancona wasn’t built in a day.

Actually, the city took more than two months to erect and perfect. That’s still not shabby for a town with no crime, no traffic nightmares and a growing populace, a town where trains run efficiently and residents have access to good emergency services.

The ideal burg for the year 2195 was built by a trio of Orange County urban planners--three kids barely into their teens.

Jeff Carroll, Cory Jobst and Jacob Smith created the fictional town using a computer game called “Sim City.” Today, the three students from Bernardo Yorba Junior High School in Yorba Linda find themselves in Washington for a competition against six other teams from across the country to decide who has built the best city of the future.

The contest, sponsored by Rockwell International and several engineering societies, is part of National Engineers Week. Call it a deceivingly addictive way to get teen-agers excited about science and math.

Jeff said that he, Cory and Jacob created and obliterated Ancona twice on the computer before settling on their third version of the town. “I think we’ve got it now, though,” he said.

“Sim City” players pick sites for roads, police stations, airports and other landmarks in their cities. But to cover expenses such as road repairs and firefighters’ salaries, “Sim City” players have to tax their computerized residents. That can become sticky, Jeff said, just as in real life.

“We know now that controlling a city is a whole lot harder than saying, ‘The government should do this,’ because they might not have the money,” said 13-year-old Jeff.

Aside from possible destruction by their creators, simulated cities face the threat of disaster by earthquakes, fires and Godzilla.

Jeff headed the team’s effort to build an 18-square-foot scale model of the town for the competition, complete with gray wood blocks for office buildings and brown wood chunks for apartment buildings. Cory, 13, the computer whiz of the bunch, put together the technical side.

Jacob, 14, wrote the team’s essay and will likely field many of the judges’ queries about Ancona when the youths step before a panel today at the Academy of Engineering.

The questions figure to be tough, the teen-agers said.

“Last time, they asked us if we thought about child care or sewage,” said Jeff, referring to panelists who judged January’s regional competition in Buena Park. “We didn’t know what to say, because you can’t control those things in ‘Sim City.’

“But now, if they ask, at least we’ll have an answer.”

Todd Ferguson, a science teacher at Bernardo Yorba, selected the team in October from nine groups of students vying to represent the school. The team won a West Coast competition in January, making them eligible to compete in Washington. Ferguson has accompanied the team to their competitions, along with Rockwell engineer and team mentor Ray Fairbanks.

The three eighth-grade teammates have known each other for more than four years, they said, and all share a common interest in music, books and computers.

Reading is Jacob’s passion. He just finished Upton Sinclair’s stomach-turning industrial classic “The Jungle” and said he races through Tom Clancy novels, too. “I read all sorts of stuff--it’s a lot more fun than just watching TV,” said Jacob, who is interested in studying environmental engineering.

Cory said he likes drawing and math and might go into architecture. Jeff added that he enjoys building and putting things together and may pursue a career in computer science.

All three friends play wind instruments in several school bands--Jeff at trombone, Cory at saxophone and Jacob at both saxophone and bassoon.

If they win today’s competition, the teammates get a free stint at the U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala. That sounds great to Jeff’s mom.

“It’s a wonderful thing for kids,” said Myrna Carroll, beaming. “You get to play astronaut.”

And not to forget the other perk of a victory: a planned visit to the Oval Office to meet President Clinton. All three teammates had no idea what they would say to the President, although Jacob quipped, “I’d ask him, ‘ Sooo , how’s that trade deal with Japan?’ ”

When they come home, don’t expect them to be “Sim City”-ed-out, either.

“We just got ‘Sim City 2000,’ ” said Jacob, referring to the new, souped-up version of the game in which players can build rooms underground and lay canals through their cyber metropolis. “We’ll keep playing.”