A team of UPEI Sustainable Design Engineering students placed first at the 2026 Canadian Engineering Competition (CEC), with their "Biomimicry in Engineering Design" presentation in the Engineering Communications category. Read about this opportunity and the dedicated work behind the students' project:

Myah Van't Veld: "Each year, the Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering holds a qualifier competition for engineering students. This competition is advertised to all engineering students and the top two teams from each category are sent to the Atlantic Engineering Competition (AEC). AEC is an annual event, with participants from nine universities across Atlantic Canada. With multiple categories it gives students a chance to compete and show off different engineering skills. 

This January, my teammate Emma Ledgerwood, and I competed as one of UPEI’s teams in the category of Engineering Communications, where we presented on the topic of Biomimicry in Engineering Design. Engineering Communications tests the ability of teams to present a scientific or technical topic in a way that demonstrates a thorough understanding of the topic, highlights their oral communication skills, and tests their ability to make an engineering topic accessible to all. Having competed in other categories before, our decision to do communications was based on our shared love of presenting and seeing our peers’ success at CEC in this category last year. Prior to the competition we spent many hours, outside of our regular course work, researching and creating a slideshow on our topic. This slideshow along with an abstract was submitted in advance of the competition and was presented by us in Halifax at AEC. We placed second at AEC, therefore qualifying us for a place at the Canadian Engineering Competition (CEC) in March. CEC is an annual competition that brings together the top two teams of each of the four regional competitions for each category. We had the opportunity to make changes and edit our presentation with the feedback we received at AEC before submitting it for CEC. I was able to travel to Sherbrooke, Quebec, with many of my fellow UPEI classmates, to present our presentation on behalf of my team. At CEC I was able to defend UPEI’s title and bring home first place in the Engineering Communications category for the second year in a row."

What kinds of things did you and your team really enjoy about the competition?

"Both of these competitions gave me a great opportunity to meet fellow engineering students from schools all across Canada and to make new friends along the way. CEC showed a true sense of community, not only amongst the UPEI delegates but also from all of the Atlantic Engineering Schools. Students from UPEI and other Atlantic schools took the time to watch my final presentation, give words of encouragement, offer up their time for me to practice, and were the first to jump up and celebrate during the awards banquet. We really all came together to support one another in a way that truly meant the most to me out of everything that I experienced during this competition."

What are the benefits of competing in student competitions like this one?

"The opportunity to compete at both AEC and CEC is priceless. Aside from an opportunity to create lasting relationships with peers from all across Canada it also gives us students a much-needed opportunity to showcase the skills we have learned throughout the course of our degrees and provides us with a unique opportunity for growth. Receiving feedback from judges at AEC was instrumental in not only improving our presentation for CEC but also for helping us develop our communication skills as individuals. It provided us with a chance to highlight our individual strengths and show the collective impact the program here at UPEI has had on not only myself and my teammate, but also on all of the engineering students here. UPEI did exceptionally well at both the regional and national competition and outperformed many schools much larger and more established than ourselves. Given our topic of Biomimicry in Engineering Design, we were also able to highlight the advantages of a sustainable approach to engineering and the benefits it could have on not only engineering as a discipline but also on the world as we move forward."

What did you learn about yourself or your peers after experiencing the competition?

"CEC taught me to push past my own limits and to believe in myself and the engineering skills I have spent the last five years developing. Although I am very accustomed to public speaking, the time prior to the presentation can be very nerve wracking. The hardest part isn’t the presentation itself, but all the work and practice that goes into preparing for it. Once I started talking, that’s when the fun began because it was my opportunity to share everything I have learned on the subject with others and to be an advocate for more sustainable engineering practices."