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Robotics at QE went international as never before this summer, with no fewer than nine teams heading to the VEX World Championships in Texas and then, in the last week of term, a visit from the reigning senior Australian champions.

The six IQ (Year 8 and 9) and three VRC (Year 10) teams picked up a string of trophies in Dallas, while also taking time to sample the sights of the city.

Back in Barnet, the Australians’ visit was a meeting of champions, since the Australian VRC winners among the party from Barker College, Sydney, had the chance to rub shoulders with QE’s Team Nova, crowned at this year’s UK’s VRC national finals in Telford.

Head of Digital Teaching & Learning Michael Noonan said: “A last-minute opportunity arose to host the Australians, which gave talented robotics students from different sides of the world an opportunity to share ideas and best practice, and to plan for the season ahead in a symposium-style event.

“It was a great way to end a year which has seen large numbers of our boys take part in regional, national and international events, enjoying great experiences and achieving some notable triumphs, including Team Nova winning the UK tournament championship.

“2022–2023 was also a year of firsts: it included a visit in the spring to the inaugural VEX Robotics Signature Event in Las Vegas (attended by our Year 12 squads unable to attend the World Championships because of their Summer Term public examinations), and our teams being named winners or runners-up in nine separate VEX Robotics Online Challenges – which made QE the most successful organisation in the world in this format.”

The 60-strong group of 15–17 year-old Australians called in during their trip to London and Paris. Their school, Barker College, is a large, high-achieving independent school on the North Shore of Sydney.

In a message to the School before the visit, Barker College Design & Technology teacher Kevin Jones wrote: “Our teachers and students can’t get their heads around the fact you were founded in 1573!” This, he pointed out, was fully 200 years before Captain James Cook became the first European to sail along the Eastern coast of Australia.

At the World Championships in Dallas, the younger QE boys’ trophy haul included a trio of awards for Team Gearsquad and a Create Award for Year 8’s TechnoGear.

At the senior level, the 19 VRC competitors collectively came away with six awards, including an Inspire Award and the Promote Video Online Challenge Award.  Two of the three teams – Nova and Shattersquad – battled through tough early competition and successfully made it through to their divisional knockout stages.

During their time in Dallas, QE pupils: visited attractions including the Illusion Museum and Dallas Aquarium; paid their respects at the John F Kennedy memorial site (the US President was assassinated in Dallas in 1963), and enjoyed the spectacular views from the top of the iconic Reunion Tower.

3D printing entrepreneur Arian Aghababaie, co-founder of California-based Holo, shared insights into the latest developments in additive manufacturing and gave advice on engineering careers when he led two inspirational events at QE during a visit to the UK.

After working for global software firm Autodesk, based in San Francisco, Arian (OE 1998–2003) raised venture capital and successfully spun out its additive manufacturing team to form Holo, while also transitioning its technology from the 3D printing of polymers to metals. Six-and-a-half years later, Holo is at the forefront of innovation, using its proprietary digital platform to enable the manufacturing at scale of high-performance parts across a range of materials, including metals, ceramics and composites. Holo is supported by top-tier Silicon Valley investors and strategic partners.

Arian’s morning at QE began with a tour of the School, before he led a Sixth Form additive manufacturing workshop, with five of QE’s own 3D printers on hand. Later, he delivered a lunchtime talk, giving his take on careers in engineering and 3D printing.

Head of Technology Michael Noonan said: “Arian provided Year 12 with a workshop which firstly covered his professional journey to date, from his early days post PhD working on founding his own company (The Invention Works) through to his position as Senior Principal Engineer at Autodesk. Most of the workshop, however, focussed on his current company, Holo. He explained that he and the other co-founders could see the enormous potential to create a viable business in this area and so pursued it as an opportunity.”

Arian went on to explain the details around the scale of production, the materials used and the fidelity of the products which Holo’s machines can make through its own PureForm Technology.

“His technologies have a unique advantage over competitors, and he works with many major companies in the healthcare, consumer electronics, robotics, and automotive sectors, to name a few,” said Mr Noonan.

He even set the Year 12 boys a challenge to develop a product using QE’s own 3D printers. They should design (and perhaps build) a scaled-up, minimally invasive surgical instrument. His requirements were that:

• The instrument should have six degrees of freedom
• It should be able to be cable or gear-driven
• The boys’ work should include the design of at least two custom end-effectors (the devices at the end of a robotic arm, designed to interact with the environment)
• They should determine its size and features based on the capabilities of their own printers.

Bonus points were offered for the designs with the fewest components and if the end-effectors could be easily changed within the same clevis pin (part of a fastener system)!

Two examples of the boys’ work in response to the challenge are shown here.

In the lunchtime talk to Year 10, Arian took a more personal look at his story, beginning with his time at QE, when he was in Stapylton House and was a musician and prefect.

After first presenting a version of his life which had him gliding seamlessly from his first engineering degree at Bristol to gaining his doctorate, also at Bristol, moving to San Francisco in 2016 and then founding Holo the following year, he next spoke about “what it’s actually been like” – a narrative that includes leaving QE early, dropping out of university, the financial crash and the huge impact of Covid.

The lessons he learned included “stay true to your authentic self” and “don’t fear failure”.

The visit came about after Headmaster Neil Enright struck up a conversation with Arian on LinkedIn.

Mr Noonan said: “It really was a tremendous day. One of the boys involved said to me afterwards: ‘Sir, are you aware that Arian is working in the job we all dream to have one day?’ I am immensely grateful to Arian for taking the time to give back to his School and for giving our students something amazing to aspire to.”

As many of QE’s Vex robotics teams pit themselves against the best on the planet this term at the world championships in Dallas, the senior boys in the VRC competition are celebrating strong performances at their national finals.

This year, QE sent six teams to the VRC National Championships at Telford International Centre for the first time. With six junior teams also making the journey, Queen Elizabeth’s School had more teams at the national finals than any other organisation.

Head of Technology Michael Noonan said the senior teams headed for Telford with the feeling that a national championship might be on the cards for the first time since 2020 – and so it proved! After the tough final stages, Year 10’s Team Nova duly took the crown.

“Our Nova team did tremendously well. They started very strongly out of the blocks, then slipped down the rankings on day two, before coming back strongly and mustering a great performance in the final to clinch the title,” said Mr Noonan. “My congratulations also go to our other senior performers, who include those in Year 12 who did well, but are unable to go to the world championships because of this term’s public examinations.”

The QE boys benefitted from the support of corporate sponsor, Kingston Technology, sporting QE hoodies bearing the Kingston logo.

Nova competed along with three other Year 10 teams – Typhoon, Oblivion and Shattersquad – and two Year 12 teams, Hybrid and Tempest.

The teams were split evenly between the Lovelace and Brunel divisions in the competition at Telford. While the older teams struggled a little, not least because of problems caused by some last-minute adjustments, Nova and Typhoon began well.

On day two, some high-scoring losses sent Nova and Hybrid down the rankings, but Nova, together with Team Tempest, managed to consolidate their positions in the Skills challenge, with the former finishing second and Team Tempest climbing to fifth.

At the conclusion of the divisional group stages, Team Nova were fourth in the Brunel division. QE’s best performance in the Lovelace division came from Typhoon, who were fifth.

As the final stages progressed, high-performing QE sides found themselves facing each other, with Typhoon defeating Shattersquad in a Lovelace quarter-final and Nova beating Hybrid in a Brunel semi-final.

“This paved the way for teams from QE to participate in both divisional finals, and the real possibility of an all-QE national final between the winners in each division,” said Mr Noonan.

It was not to be, however. After a complicated series of events started when illegal parts were spotted on another team’s robot, Typhoon had to battle against the disadvantage of having to disable part of their own robot. They fought bravely alongside their alliance partner, but in the end, lost their deciding game by a single point, 133-134. “Divisional runners up, their pride was still intact and they learned a great deal from this experience,” said Mr Noonan.

Nova and their alliance partner had a tough final, but having won their first match 153-143, they went on to a final score of 195-143 to secure the much-coveted national championship. Nova also took a Build award and Hybrid a Design award.

A group of sixth-formers enjoyed the privilege of a special day at the Shoreditch offices of Amazon Web Services, where leaders shared their insights into the fast-moving technological world they inhabit.

The boys were special guests at one of AWS’s monthly re:Purpose days, on which AWS staff are encouraged to get involved in projects and initiatives outside of their normal day-to-day work.

Ben Moss, from the Digital Native & Enterprise Software and Software as a Servicer (SaaS) Team at AWS, said: “The theme of this re:Purpose day was collaboration, so I teamed up with the Queen Elizabeth’s School to deliver an Amazon insight day for several of their students. We heard from our AWS leadership, solutions architect, graduates and apprentices, all who shared their insightful experiences within AWS.”

Praising the QE group for their preparation and commitment, Mr Moss said it had been a “brilliant day for all”.

AWS is a subsidiary of Amazon. It offers hundreds of paid-for web-based products and services to individuals and organisations.

Enterprise Business Development Representative, Ella Cooper, who organised the day, together with her colleague, Juste Mena, said the day had seen the QE visitors “diving deep into careers in the cloud”.

The boys were able to see for themselves the potential of AI. One undoubted highlight of the day was a machine-learning live demo, including Amazon Rekognition, its SaaS platform that developers can use to add image and video analysis to their applications. The QE group saw it used to identify the features of familiar neighbourhoods and of celebrities.

They also heard from Senior Manager Joe Welton and Solutions Architect, Jack Bark.

Stephanie Tomlinson, QE’s Assistant Head of Technology, said: “Interestingly, Joe and Jack had shared aspects to their career pathways. Both spoke about the series of fortuitous moments which have led to their impressive and meaningful roles within AWS, highlighting to our pupils the reason we should use and follow our gut instinct!”

Thanking the team at AWS and praising the “seamless delivery” of the day, she said the boys had benefitted from a memorable experience: “Particular themes and lessons included the importance of mindset, attitude and establishing common ground. AWS is meritocratic, rewarding dynamic individuals who show skill and a strong emotional intelligence.

“Our boys undoubtedly took away a great deal – particularly the importance of learning and being curious.”

Queen Elizabeth’s School was the most successful organisation in the world in this year’s VEX robotics Online Challenges.

Having already achieved significant successes in recent years at in-person regional, national and international Vex championships – including a world title in 2018 – QE’s robotics teams have recently added online competitions to their repertoire.

And now that the results are in for the 2022–2023 Online Challenges, it is clear just how strong their performances have been: QE has been informed that its teams were either winners or runners-up in nine separate challenges, with seven first places.

Not only do the winning teams receive cash prizes, they also gain automatic qualification for this season’s VEX Robotics World Championship in Dallas, USA.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “By any standards, these are fantastic results, and that is reflected in the fact that QE is the highest-achieving school or other organisation globally this year.

“My warm congratulations go to all the boys who took part and to our Head of Technology, Michael Noonan, and his team for the work they did in preparing them.”

Nine QE teams were named among the top places in 13 competitions, six of them at junior (VIQC) level and seven at senior (VRC) level.

One VRC squad – team number 20785X – was named winner of both the Theme It Up! Challenge and the Community Challenge, as well as being a runner-up in the Career Readiness Challenge. Another, 20785C, took two runner-up spots.

At junior level, 21549A was a double winner, taking the top spot in both the VIQC Career Readiness Challenge and the STEM Research Project.

Here are some examples of what the challenges involved:

• VRC and VIQC Career Readiness Challenge: entrants had to explore the way in which professionals in a specific career or company use and document the steps of the engineering design process. The challenge information stated: “We want you to explore a possible future career, and discover the similarities and differences in how that prospective career and VEX Robotics teams use and learn from the process of engineering design.”
• VIQC STEM Research Project: this involved exploring nature’s patterns and using that knowledge to engineer a new solution to a current problem.
• VRC Promote Video Challenge: participants were asked to make a video promoting their experience with Vex Robotics. They were invited to “show us who you are, who you aspire to be, and what makes your team special and successful”.

Pictured here are some of the QE robotics teams on their travels during the regional rounds of this year’s domestic VEX competitions.

Two Year 12 squads flew the flag for Britain when they fought against more than 100 competing teams in the Battle for Vegas – an inaugural Vex Robotics Signature Event in the desert resort.

The QE boys, who made up the only teams from outside North America to attend, enjoyed both the competition and the chance to take in Las Vegas’s spectacular attractions.

QE’s team Tempest finished their first day unbeaten, despite some daunting opposition, while team HYBRID struck up a strong relationship with an American partner team on day 2. In their time off, the sixth-formers revelled in the technical and architectural wonders on, around and even under the city’s glittering streets.

Head of Technology Michael Noonan, who accompanied the boys together with Technology teacher James Howard, explained that since the annual Vex Robotics World Championships in the US fall in the Summer Term, boys in years with public examinations are unable to attend. Instead, their teachers looked into suitable US-based Signature Events, which are events designed to provide competition at a level above that typically experienced at regional competitions. The QE teams, who are sponsored by Kingston Technology, opted for the one based at the Westgate Hotel and Resort in Las Vegas – the venue where, in July 1969, Elvis Presley performed two shows a night, seven days a week.

After their ten-hour flight from Heathrow, the AS students first replenished their strength at the Peppermill Restaurant, made famous as the backdrop of films and TV shows including Casino, The Cotton Club, and CSI: Vegas.

They then made their way along Vegas’s celebrated Strip. “One highlight in particular was The Venetian – a resort and hotel, which boasts an indoor network of Venice-style canals, complete with singing gondola drivers!” said Mr Noonan. Further down the street, they took in the famous Welcome to Las Vegas sign and marvelled both at the water & light show at the fountain of the Bellagio and at the incredible complexity of the part-roller coaster, part-hotel New York New York attraction. “Racking up close to 30,000 steps over the course of the day was not enough, though, as the pupils made their way to the Area 15 entertainment complex, wondering at many of the audio-visual wonders on offer, and at the surreal Omega Mart [an exhibition billed as ‘an interactive, mind-bending immersive art experience’].”

After an early start the following morning – and a swift present-buying visit to the World’s Largest Gift Shop – the boys began preparations for their first formal day of competition. They started setting up their pit area, fine-tuning their build process and rehearsing their pro-programmed routines.

This day also brought a highly exclusive trip to the cutting-edge loop underground public transport system at the Las Vegas Convention Center created by Elon Musk’s The Boring Company. “The students were able to see state-of-the-art engineering developments, many of which are too secretive to even photograph!” said Mr Noonan.

After this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the boys returned to their robotics, making final preparations for the following day of qualification, as well as taking part in some impromptu practice sessions. “As the only overseas team at the event, the other 100 or so US, Canada and Mexico-based teams were very eager to get to know the QE teams, with lots of potential alliance links formed,” said Mr Noonan. They topped off the day with a visit to the “incredible” High Roller observation wheel at The LINQ Hotel – a 550ft wheel offering breath-taking views over the Strip.

“On the first day of competition, team Tempest had, in keeping with their name, a storming day, despite their division featuring some of the world’s finest teams. They finished the day with a perfect record of five wins, leaving them ranked fifth in their division of 61 teams.”

Things proved a little tougher for team HYBRID, with last-minute fixes and alterations at times resulting in inconsistent robot performance. “However, they toughed it out and managed to finish the day with a record of three wins and two losses,” said Mr Noonan.

With little time to catch their breath, the teams were then off to Battlebots Arena – a permanent area purpose-built to showcase the highly popular Battlebots television show, yet featuring live robotic action. “They were thrilled to see famed robots from the television series, including Witch Doctor, Kraken, Mammoth, HyperShock and Whiplash. At the end of the event, they took photos with some of the engineers and team representatives, gaining an insight into the lives of professional robotic engineers.”

After their disappointments on day 1, team HYBRID began day 2 still determined to finish in the automatic alliance spots in their division. “They succeeded in doing so, finishing the qualification section ranked 21st, and allying with team 3303S Dublin Robotics from Dublin, California,” said Mr Noonan. “They built up a great relationship with them through collaboration and discussion over the two days and were always likely to pick this team. Sadly, there was further disappointment for them, as they were cruelly denied by disqualification on a technicality in their round-of-16 game.”

Having remained unbeaten in the early stages of competition, team Tempest did finally succumb to their only loss of the tournament, and finished the day ranked 13^th. “They chose Team Fizzy, a former World Championship challenger from Omaha, Nebraska, and were unfortunate not to progress past the round of 16, following a loss caused by robot malfunction.”

The boys took in the overall finals, witnessing the “incredible consistency” of the eventual champion teams, Gears from Martinsville, Indiana, and Pink Sparklee Unicorns from Woodbridge, Virginia. “They managed to grab a photo with the champion teams – gaining some essential advice on how to continue to improve.”

As they got ready for their return flight, the QE teams were visibly exhausted, but were already planning that, after a short break, they would be preparing to go into battle once again, their sights set on a first QE VEX Robotics Championship win in three years, Mr Noonan said.

Two Year 9 boys have won an international artificial intelligence competition – the only UK winners across all age groups.

Paarth Aggarwal and Nittant Moudgil took gold in the middle school category of the fifth annual World Artificial Intelligence Competition for Youth (WAICY), beating teams from Australia, Greece, India and Indonesia.

They impressed judges with their project to help local councils mitigate the impact of fly-tipping, which combined an AI-powered app and a camera powered by a Raspberry Pi computer.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “AI is likely to transform all our lives in the future and it is good to see QE pupils at the forefront of this revolution. My congratulations go to Nittant and Paarth both for their success and for the combination of intelligence, inventiveness and application that they demonstrated in developing and presenting this project.”

The pair were mentored by Paarth Aggarwal’s father, Saurabh. Mr Aggarwal works for Cognizant, the American multinational IT services and consulting company, as an Associate Director in its UK Artificial Intelligence & Analytics Advisory and Consulting team.

They were among more than 1,000 entrants in the competition, which attracted interest from young people in more than 30 countries around the world: for example, the winners of the high school category were from the USA and those of the elementary school category from the UAE.

Paarth and Nittant won their medals and certificate for “outstanding performance”. Their project was designed to detect objects that are typically the subject of fly-tipping. They aimed to reduce the deleterious impact of fly-tipping on the environment and to help local authorities optimise their resources so that they can plan better and clean up more effectively.

Nittant explained: “This was definitely a unique endeavour for me, as I haven’t taken part in an AI competition before. Paarth and I decided to approach the challenge by seeing problems that we could fix and innovate solutions for, and we had recently started noticing quite a lot of fly-tipping in our local area. We found it to be a widespread issue that affects many communities and has negative environmental and economic impacts, so we decided on making an app that uses an ML model to detect waste and report it to the local council. Winning the gold medal was a pleasant surprise, but we had worked hard on it, so it was a welcome one.”

WAICY is sponsored by a number of international commercial and educational organisations. The competition judges look first for the effective use of AI in entries and expect entrants to demonstrate a thorough understanding of what AI means. Competitors are expected to be able to demonstrate their understanding by answering questions about the technical aspects of their projects, including any coding that these involved.

After learning of his gold award, Paarth said: “This competition encouraged me to develop the critical thinking in me and helped to hone my skills in AI. It was an exhilarating opportunity to experience the competition on such a global platform.”

In fact, he said, taking part had helped him overcome his fear of getting involved in such large-scale competitions. “I would highly encourage everyone to participate, persevere and learn in all competitions, whether it is on a large or small scale.”

Deloitte innovation specialist Ed Greig demonstrated robots on his visit to QE – but told the boys to focus on the nature of any problem, not the technology involved in the solution.

Mr Greig, who works for Deloitte Digital (part of the global Deloitte financial services and consultancy group) as its Chief Disruptor, made it through the snow to give a lunchtime lecture about his work, which involves working with new technologies to understand how they can benefit clients.

He told the boys: “The mantra of my team is to fall in love with the problem, not the solution.”

He stressed the importance of understanding the true nature of problems, suggesting that invariably they are really about cultural change rather than technology – even if technology might be involved in the solution.

He gave the real-life example of a prosthetic arm for a six-year-old girl, where the issue was not merely the functionality of the limb, but making sure the girl would actually wear it by ensuring its design was fashionable and appealing, so that she would want to put it on.

There were now so many more opportunities to create and replicate experiences than even ten years ago, he said.

He gave demonstrations of both AI-powered software robots and hardware robots: having brought along a robot dog, he made it climb the stairs leading to the stage in the hall in QE’s Main Building.

He also sent a robot around Deloitte’s offices looking for people to say ‘hello’ to members of his QE audience – a task complicated by the fact that, as a result of the snow, the offices were virtually empty!

Mr Greig, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at the University of Warwick. After running his own web design business, he joined Deloitte in 2009 as a Technology, Creative and User Experience Consultant in 2009.

In his current role, his work involves demonstrating the benefits of new technologies in a tangible way by building proofs-of-concept and minimum viable products.

After winning plaudits at Harvard for his performance in a 24-hour ‘hackathon’, 16-year-old Soumil Sahjpall’s entry in an online follow-up event took third place, beating off competition from university teams worldwide.

During his trip to the US, Soumil rubbed shoulders with Ivy League students as he developed blockchain software for cryptocurrency TRON in a coding marathon. His app earned him an ‘honourable mention’ from the judges, who placed him in joint-ninth place out of 55 teams.

He then entered the TRON International Hackathon 3.0, an extension of the in-person event, which featured more than a thousand competitors from across the globe. Soumil said he was proud that his third place was the result of a vote by “a cryptocurrency community of thousands”.

Assistant Head (Pupil Destinations) James Kane said: “Our warm congratulations go to Soumil. He showed significant commitment in entering these competitions in the first place; he then demonstrated great skill and put in a huge amount of hard work to achieve international success against competitors several years older than him.”

TRON, a leading cryptocurrency with a current market value of $5 billion, set a brief to develop a dAPP, or “decentralized app” – that is, software that runs on the blockchain, as opposed to on a server hosted by technology giants such as Amazon or Microsoft.

The in-person hackathon at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, featured a 24-hour period dedicated solely to developing the dAPP. In addition, Soumil attended workshops, and there was time allocated to presenting and pitching to judges.

Because of his age, even taking part represented a success: the organisers cleared him to compete, based on his performance in previous hackathons. Altogether, 55 projects were presented by some 200 young people, most of them six or seven years older than Soumil.

“I found out about this hackathon with relatively short notice, so I competed solo,” he said. “I was relatively confident in my abilities and knew I’d still be having lots of fun, so that was all right. The average team size was around four members – with a maximum of five – so I was at a disadvantage.”

Although delighted with the honourable mention – one of only ten available – for his presentation, and the $500 cash prize that went with it, he said “the real take-away from this is the experience and the people I met.” These included students from Harvard, Yale, MIT and Boston’s Northeastern University.

In the online event, the TRON International Hackathon 3.0, Soumil submitted his project, which he called ‘Project Pledger’, under the ‘academy’ track, designated for university-level students and his work was voted third.

Two sixth-formers have been named as Arkwright Scholars after successfully demonstrating their prowess as engineers.

Darren Lee and Yash Patel laboured for months through a gruelling selection process for the scholarships, which will now provide them with financial and mentoring support during their A-level studies.

Head of Technology Michael Noonan said: “My congratulations go to both Yash and Darren: these scholarships are not lightly awarded, and the pair’s success is a reflection of their assiduous approach to the process, of their presentation skills, and, of course, of the excellent standard of their engineering.”

The long-running Arkwright programme is run by the national Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) education charity, The Smallpeice Trust, and aims to inspire future leaders in engineering. This year, only 300 candidates were successful out of 1,423 applicants.

The benefits of the scholarships include a £600 personal financial award, £400 for the scholar’s school, mentoring, industry-based ‘Connect Days’ and invitations to university-based VIP receptions.

Darren and Yash, both of Year 12, were presented with certificates at an awards ceremony held at the Institution of Engineering and Technology in London.

As part of his application, Darren gave a presentation which covered the design and manufacture of  ‘Overlap’ – a rugby lineout machine that he devised (pictured top). He also featured in his presentation his involvement with VEX Robotics at the School.

The process included an engineering aptitude test and an online interview, during which candidates had both to make a presentation and to respond to technical engineering questions.

He said: “It’s an absolute honour to receive this scholarship, recognising my engineering skills and hours of hard work I’ve put into my technology projects. I’m incredibly proud to call myself an Arkwright Scholar.

“I believe that the networking aspect of this scholarship will prove to be very beneficial. As an Arkwright Scholar, I have access to the MentorNet platform, where I can communicate, discuss and receive feedback from some of the brightest young engineering minds in the country.”

For his part, Yash says that being an Arkwright Scholar will assist him in pursuing interests such as model-making, CAD design and 3D printing out of School and will help him fund a wishlist of projects, including making movie props and designing his own model train set and an electric guitar.

“It means I will be provided with opportunities, such as work experience, Connect Days and bursary offers or further scholarships, which may not be provided to others, as I will stand out to engineering-related organisations,” said Yash. “I have become a more competitive university applicant and can build up a larger network of prominent engineers and leaders in the industry.”