News
| 21 November 2022

Meet the Graduate Hackathon winners

At an online finals event held last Thursday, host and General Manager Student and Graduate Membership Samantha Zdjelar announced the winners of this years’ Engineers Australia Graduate Hackathon. 

Samantha says “we were really thrilled to receive entries from all over Australia and the calibre of the submissions has blown us away.” 

After an extensive review process by the judges, which were made up of engineering professionals from around the country, the teams were narrowed down to just five and after presenting at the finals, the winners were announced. 

1st place went to team ‘Green stars’: Willa Budiman, Emelin Ananda Baru, and Mark Brownley as mentor.  

Participant Willa Budiman believes that getting involved in the Hackathon was a good opportunity to apply engineering knowledge and learn new skills. The team's winning engineering solution for the 2023 Brisbane Olympic Games was for the eco-floor, an energy harvesting floor using quartz. The team demonstrated that quartz was an ideal piece of electromagnetic material, which can be framed with timber and placed on the floor of existing sporting venues to generate electricity as people walk on it. 

“Both Emelin and I are passionate about sustainability. When they announced the topic for the competition, we were excited to challenge ourselves and contribute our ideas. 

“Winning means being able to have a vision as a team, set out clear goals, being focused and persistent until the end,” Willa says. “It is also a good opportunity to expand our connections and be open to new opportunities, especially since we are just beginning our careers as young engineers. 

2nd place went to team Pollution solutions: Woon Hwan Choi, Anoushka Rehan, and Cangie Wu as mentor. 

And the People’s Choice Award went to ‘Kellogg brown-root cereal’: Janet George, Kenneth Jin, Jayath Dias, Umar Hassan, Kinda Haroun, and Hannah Crowther as mentor. 

The winning team was awarded a $5000 cash voucher split between team members, and the runners up were awarded a $2000 cash voucher split between team members. 

The hackathon was designed to encourage student and graduate engineers to apply both theoretical and technical skills to solve real engineering problems and showcase their talents to the wider profession. 

“We are hoping that the Graduate Hackathon continues to grow and develop each year, Samantha says, “giving the future engineers of Australia the opportunity to put their minds towards solving some of the country’s greatest challenges.” 

Watch the video submissions from our finalists and find out more about the winners.