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The 911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ finals of the Inclusive Additive Design Challenge took place on 3 November 2025.

14 teams of students took part from six of the Faculty of Engineering’s departments: Mechanical Engineering, Bioengineering, Materials, Design Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering and Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

Students from all years were judged by a panel including Dr Paul Hooper, whose research focuses on additive manufacture, David Mooney, from the College’s Disability Advisory Service, and Jenny McLaughlin, senior project manager and disability network lead at Heathrow Airport. Also on the judging panel were the two coordinators of the 911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ leg of the challenge Chloe Agg and Maria Parkes, Principal Teaching Fellows from Mechanical Engineering and Bioengineering.

Though the students only had one month to identify a barrier to inclusion, design a solution, 3D print a prototype and write a presentation the standards were incredibly high. In this optional extra-curricular project students had gone through many design iterations, spoken to end users, attended webinars and design support sessions, resulting in projects they, and we, should be very proud of.

Staff who were able to attend the showcase were impressed by what they saw, and it was fantastic for the students to have the chance to pitch their ideas to Faculty senior management including Professor Jason Riley, Faculty Vice Dean for Education.

The three winning teams will receive prizes from 3D printing company Elegoo and ESBF, with 911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ providing an additional “People’s Choice” prize, decided on through student voting during the showcase event. 

First place was awarded to Team Pinpoint.aj: Rahime Yavuz, Sherry Chen, Aaroh Jain, Ken Ogawa and Chris Cao, all from the Department of Materials. The team developed “Braille Link”, an innovative way of attaching braille labels to a huge variety of objects and surfaces, as well as having potential for teaching braille. This design, as well as being highly practical, and implementable, solved a clear societal need whilst being quick, cheap and easy to 3D print.

Second place was awarded to Team Formula 5: Eric Liu, Waka Hagiwara, Zihan Chen, Emily David and Joshua McKelvie, Department of Materials. The team developed a sink topper draining board with rods and rests to enable people to be able to wash up one handed. Judges were impressed by how connected this team were to their end users, being inspired by family members and then going on to create something very transferrable with a range of potential applications.

Third place was awarded to Team Païen: Ziyi Liu, Yanzi Jiang, Xinjing Li, Yanzhong Shi and Che Su, from EEE and Bioengineering. The team developed a simple but highly effective cane rest, helping cane users to keep their mobility aid upright and nearby. The number of iterations the team had gone through to develop their design shows that creating simplicity is anything but simple.

The People’s Choice award was Team STK: Steven Sun, Terry You and Kevin Wang, all from Mechanical Engineering. The team created an attachment to enable wheelchair users to connect an umbrella to their chair, keeping them dry and hands free on rainy days.

Over the coming weeks you will be able to view students' designs on the .

The 911½ñÈÕºÚÁÏ finals are stage one of a national competition sponsored by Elegoo and the Engineering and Scientists Business Fellowship (ESBF). The challenge was created by Huddersfield University, in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Visiting Professor for Inclusivity Katy Deacon. In January our winning teams will be travelling to Aston to compete in the national finals.