Queen Mary students have been crowned the overall winners of the Engineers Without Borders Chapters Design Challenge, following the final at the University of Birmingham last week.

The competition brought together more than 100 students from 22 Engineers Without Borders student societies. Four teams reached the final, where Queen Mary beat teams from the University of Bath, the University of Leeds and the University of Cambridge to take the top prize.

In the lead-up to the competition, participating teams worked on a design brief asking how to support Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal communities to survive, thrive and flourish in remote Australia.

Queen Mary's team came up with a high-impact solution: a permeable road system integrated with an underground water storage system, which would help reduce flooding and maintain road access for communities in Cape York, Australia. During monsoon season, the system would gather and store water to then be used during drought season.

The pitching team, Nicole Kirk, Heba Mansour, Yara Elsaadany, Khadidja Cheref and Rajdeep Bachuh, are students from across Engineering specialisms, including Robotics, Mechanical and Design. Queen Mary's Engineers Without Borders society is not yet six months old, after being founded in September 2025. As a relatively new society, this win is a huge achievement and one they should be very proud of.

Team member Rajdeep reflected: “This challenge was a wake-up call that there is no 'best' strand of engineering. I learned that the magic happens when different pathways collide.”

“As a Foundation Year student, and one of the youngest at the event, I was initially nervous. However, seeing my input directly contribute to a winning success has been a massive confidence boost. It proved that you don't need to wait until your final year to start thinking like a professional engineer."

Team member Rayan added: “In such a short period of time, seeing the chapter grow, collaborate, and achieve milestones like this has been incredibly rewarding”.

The win comes with £1000 of prize money to fund more student projects. At the end of last year, the society hosted The Big Pitch, and we can’t wait to see what they achieve next.

The Engineers Without Borders society full team, who contributed to this win is:

Committee:

• Kukuuwa Buckman
• Rayan Amjad
• Umer Asif
• Phoebe Asante
• Mariyam Mowlana
• Nicole Kirk

Members:

• Yara Elsaandany
• Khadidja Cheref
• Heba Mansour
• Rajdeep Singh Bhachu
• Alisha Asif
• Amal Jama
• Radif Rafiqul
• Luke Barretto
• Anushan Kugathasan
• Jaineet Khurana
• Abdur Rajjak Sabbir
• Aman Samir Mhatre
• Anshu Singh