• Three Central West first-year Charles Sturt University engineering students won the ‘most outstanding design project’ award at the recent annual Engineers Without Boarders (EWB) Australia national showcase event
• The student team’s project addressed two UN Sustainable Development Goals and was also awarded the Showcase Pitch Award for the ‘Cambodia context’ section
• The judges spoke highly of the students’ project pitch, noting how the team empathised with the community

Three Central West first-year Charles Sturt University engineering students won the prestigious ‘most outstanding design project’ award (Cambodia context) at the annual Engineers Without Boarders (EWB) Australia national showcase event.

The EWB Australia showcase was staged at the Sydney Masonic Centre on Tuesday 3 December with 14 teams from Australian and New Zealand universities competing.

The student team ─ Mr Toby Wilson and Mr Daniel Skrinnikoff, both from Orange, and Mr Hamish Lang from Bathurst ─ are in their first semester studying the Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) in the Engineering program in the Charles Sturt School of Computing, Mathematics and Engineering.

Their EWB Australia project titled ‘Portable tarp-based rainwater catchment and storage for Pu Ngaol, Cambodia’ was entered in and won the ‘Cambodia context’ section of the event.

The EWB selects a site and ‘context’ for students to focus their various problem-solving projects on.

In 2024, the contexts were ‘First Nations’ and ‘Cambodia’, with the latter’s site the rural community of Pu Ngaol which is located within a protected national park in Mondulkiri province approximately 400 kilometres north-east of the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.

The Charles Sturt team addressed the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals number three (Good health and well-being) and number six (Clean water and sanitation) and resolved the issue of water scarcity during dry seasons for the Pu Ngaol community.

The students’ subject coordinator Dr Miao Li, (pictured at left of group) Course Director and Senior Lecturer in Civil Engineering in the Charles Sturt School of Computing, Mathematics and Engineering, said she was very proud of the team’s performance.

“It was my privilege and my first time to teach this subject and the EWB design project award is the most prestigious, showing the quality of their design met the criteria and included all design components,” Dr Li said.

“The judges spoke highly of the students’ project pitch, including how the team empathised with the community, sourcing locally available materials to reduce any cost, as well as using native language Khmer for communication.”

Student Mr Wilson said it was an honour for the team to be selected to attend this event and present their idea to Engineers Without Borders.

“We were thrilled that our idea was awarded the Showcase Pitch Award for the ‘Cambodia context’ section of the competition,” he said.

“To be recognised by EWB is a meaningful acknowledgement of our efforts to develop a practical solution that can potentially improve the lives of those in Cambodia.”

Mr Skrinnikoff said presenting their solution for the Pu Ngaol village in Cambodia at the Engineers Without Borders University Showcase in Sydney was a truly rewarding experience.

“Receiving the Showcase Pitch Award, guided by our supervisor Miao, reflects our team’s commitment to developing practical and sustainable solutions that can create a lasting impact for communities in need,” he said.

Bathurst’s Mr Lang said it was great seeing their design highlighted as the best among their peers.

“But to go further and be recognised as the best in our competition at the EWB showcase was something special to all of us,” he said.

“It was a great experience all round and we couldn’t have done it without the help, support and dedication from our course director, Miao”.

Dr Li said that while she was teaching the students to empathise with the Pu Ngaol community, she drew upon her personal experience for part of the teaching materials.

“The Cambodian community of Pu Ngaol in Mondulkiri province is home to 547 residents, but I was born and grew up in a hamlet of only 40 households in rural Huludao, Liaoning Province, China,” she said.

“I shed tears and had to adjourn the class while sharing with the students that my parents worked very hard to send me to school so that today I am out of poverty.”

Dr Li gratefully acknowledges the financial support from the Charles Sturt University teaching academy to assist the student team to attend the event in Sydney.

Starting from 2025, Charles Sturt University is offering electrical and mechanical engineering, along with civil engineering, with two years on-campus study and two years paid placements. For details, contact Course Director Dr Miao Li.