A team of first-year engineering students from The University of Queensland (UQ) have won the State finals of the 2011 Engineers Without Borders (EWB) Challenge.
Mitchell Fletcher, Kristiane Fox, Larissa Hughes and Scott Luengen impressed the judging panel with the design of their water purification project and technical knowledge and will now travel to Perth to compete in the national EWB Challenge Finals.
Director of First Year Engineering, Associate Professor Lydia Kavanagh, congratulated the students on their success.
"The students have worked extremely hard throughout the semester designing and developing a functioning prototype," Dr Kavanagh said.
"Their water purification project was of an exceptionally high quality and was designed with the intention of addressing water sanitation issues faced by the community of Devikulam in East India."
The 2011 EWB Challenge provided students with the chance to learn about design, sustainable development, team work and communication whilst working on design problems identified by Pitchandikulam Forest Organisation and the rural community of Devikulam in Tamil Nadu, India.
The EWB Australia Challenge is an educational initiative which provides first-year university students with an opportunity to design a project in order to improve the lives of people living in developing countries.
The EWB Challenge Finals will take place at the 2011 Australasian Association for Engineering Education on December 6, 2011.
For more information on the EWB Challenge visit the website.
Media: Madelene Flanagan on 3365 8525.
