Three students from Carmichael Middle School won the state-level Future City design competition in Seattle last weekend.

Eighth-graders Dan Avila, Viknesh Kasthuri and Abum Okemgbo beat 20 other middle-school teams to capture first place. They'll head to Washington, D.C., in mid-February for the national competition.

"It all felt kind of surreal," Dan, 14, told the Herald.

Students were faced with solving stormwater runoff problems this year, Dan said. He and his team members designed and built a model city with a filtration system built into the city's roads.

The students, along with a teacher adviser and Dan's father, who also worked with them, will be invited to five days of conferences as well as the national competition.