Student groups from Memorial’s Student Design Hub are pushing their prototypes to the limits.
Some are building a MARS-ready rover; some are designing autonomous drones capable of finding and fighting forest fires.
Others are pushing off-road vehicles to new extremes or striving to be the hometown heroes at an international ROV competition in 2026.
There are also groups working to establish Newfoundland and Labrador as the space hub of Atlantic Canada, quash gender imbalances in STEM fields, enhance AI literacy across the province’s workforce and build a pipeline of students to bolster our fintech industry.
What they all have in common is that you can help them on their journeys, as they strive to make Memorial and our province proud.
Many of these students have and will go on to launch successful ventures or become instrumental to local organizations that drive the future of innovation in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Student Design Showcase Pitch and Pick
The fourth annual Student Design Showcase Pitch and Pick will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 25, from 6–9:30 p.m., under Altum the blue whale in the main entrance of the Core Science Facility on the St. John’s campus.
In five minutes or less, each Memorial student group listed below will pitch their projects and prototypes to potential sponsors in the crowd, followed by a short question and answer period.
In return, each group will recognize their sponsors in a number of ways, including putting their company logos on their rovers, ROVs, rockets and more.
All 13 groups, listed below, are with Memorial ’s Student Design Hub.
The hub supports Memorial students competing in significant competitions, and developing a product prototype. These endeavours help them use their classroom learnings to solve real-world challenges.
Mission: almost impossible
Most of the groups are gearing up to compete in international-scale competitions where they’ll have to beat the best student groups and universities worldwide for a podium finish.
Many Memorial students have gotten as close as it gets to that glory. Just last year, Paradigm Engineering and Easten Edge Robotics placed second and third respectively in a self-driving go-kart race and a subsea ROV challenge.
Shakib Miri, operations lead for the Student Design Group, says the competitions demonstrate the technical skills Memorial University students have and their ability to create something that will execute a specific task, as best as possible, to outperform their contemporaries on the international stage.
“A podium finish at these events can lead to more recognition and thus more avenues for funding to continue the development of the team’s product,” said Mr. Miri.
He adds that for individual students, placing in the competitions puts a point of pride on their resumés, helps them gain industry-ready experience in their fields and opens employment and internship opportunities, too.
Of equal importance, the events are simply unforgettable experiences for students.
“The technical events almost always involve a student-designed and student-built thing, which could be an autonomous car, a concrete canoe, a drone, a satellite or something else,” said Dr. Jonathan Anderson of the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science. “It’s pretty amazing to see how well our students stack up against the stiffest competition in the world. They regularly finish on the podium for their respective events; when they do, it’s an incredible achievement.”
The teams a a glance
Memorial Baja Racing
What they’re doing:
The team will design, manufacture and validate a new off-road vehicle to compete in the SAE International Baja competition. The competition takes the term off-road to new extremes by challenging engineering students to build a vehicle capable of surviving what the SAE calls “severe punishment.” To compensate for a critical transmission failure last year, the team is focussing on a more robust drivetrain system and weight reduction across the entire design.
What they’re seeking:
The team has a $25,500 funding gap to cover the costs of raw materials, manufacturing needs and travel.
Concrete Canoe
What they’re doing:
The MUN Concrete Canoe Design Team will compete in the Canadian National Concrete Canoe Competition. In this unique competition, students are dealt the seemingly impossible challenge of building a concrete canoe that not only floats, but floats when filled with water. Four people must then board it and race it to win the competition.
What they’re seeking:
The team has a remaining funding gap of $27,150 to cover all costs for travel, accommodations, material and supplies.
MATE ROV
What they’re doing:
The group designs and constructs a new ROV every year to compete in Marine Advanced Technology Education’s Remotely Operated Vehicle World Championships (MATE ROV). Last year, they took third place, but this year, the World Championships will take place in St. John’s, and they’d love to be the hometown heroes. The competition requires teams to complete tasks that simulate real-world subsea challenges.
What they’re seeking:
The team has a $11,610 funding gap to purchase components, equipment and manufacturing costs, and cover competition registration and marketing materials.
Generalis AI
What they’re doing:
Generalis AI is Memorial University’s first undergraduate community dedicated to bridging the gap between classroom theory and practical AI skills. Their activities will produce students with hands-on AI experience, enhancing AI literacy across Newfoundland and Labrador’s economy. For the 2025-26 season, they want to, among other things, pilot an innovation challenge with ExxonMobil Canada, and officially represent Memorial at the Canadian Undergraduate Conference on AI.
What they’re seeking:
The team is requesting $7,000 in funding to establish essential operational infrastructure, including project equipment, travel costs for the competition and administrative expenses.
Horizon Aerospace
What they’re doing:
Horizon Aerospace is the first amateur rocketry team in Newfoundland and Labrador. Their next mission is to design, build and launch Memorial’s first FAA Class 2 high-power rocket, and to compete in the Technology Development category at the Launch Canada 2026 competition – Canada’s premier rocketry competition that takes place every August in Ontario. Long term, they’re looking to establish Memorial and our province as the space hub of Atlantic Canada.
What they’re seeking:
The team has a funding gap of $48,675 to cover manufacturing the new rocket, purchasing specialized components for the TVC system and travelling to Launch Canada 2026.
Iceberg ASV
What they’re doing:
Iceberg ASV competes annually at the RoboNation RoboBoat competition. Teams must build a self-driving marine surface vehicle capable of competing in a sequence of eight challenging tasks that involve navigation, object avoidance and object delivery. Teams are evaluated on speed and accuracy, among other things. Iceberg ASV made it to the semi-finals last year and is looking to float into the finals this year.
What they’re seeking:
The team has a funding gap of $16,500 to cover system upgrades, travel and logistics for RoboBoat 2026.
Memorial Medtech
What they’re doing:
The group of 20 students from engineering, medicine and kinesiology will be competing at the 2026 True North Biomedical Competition, to showcase their Smart Knee Sleeve. The sleeve facilitates a more efficient and patient-centric approach for high-performance athletes returning to their sport. Competition aside, this group empowers the undergraduate student body at Memorial to fill gaps in our province’s and country’s biomedical engineering industry.
What they’re seeking:
The cost for prototype design, event registration and travel is $23,000. A funding gap of $13,500 remains.
Paradigm Engineering
What they’re doing:
Following their second-place finish last year, this team of more than 50 engineering students is designing, manufacturing and testing a self-driving electric go-kart for the Autonomous Karting Series (AKS) competition in Indiana. AKS challenges teams to make an electric go-kart capable of self-navigating around a track in a race against other vehicles. Paradigm is heralded for achieving seven top ten finishes in other competitions like the SpaceX Hyperloop Competition, the Boring Competition, F1TENTH and Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition.
What they’re seeking:
The team has a remaining funding gap of $18,500 to afford the travel and logistics necessary to transport the large team and their autonomous go-kart to the competition in West Lafayette.
Phoenix Aerospace
What they’re doing:
Phoenix Aerospace focusses on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). They’re designing, testing and building an aircraft to compete at the Student Unmanned Aerial Systems 2026 competition in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Their UAV platform, with capabilities like GPS waypoint navigation and image mapping, is designed to be directly transferable to commercial applications such as environmental monitoring and search and rescue.
What they’re seeking:
To cover the costs of components, manufacturing and travel, they have a remaining funding gap of $24,875.
MUN Quant Society
What they’re doing:
The MUN Quant Society is a multidisciplinary club developing student talent for the fintech and quantitative trading industries. Their long-term goal is to become an industry-ready pipeline, training students from various backgrounds, like business, engineering and computer science, to become competent financial analysts and software developers for the local tech and finance sectors. Right now, they’re seeking funding to attend their first out-of-province competition and to host their first in-house Quant competition in spring 2026.
What they’re seeking:
They’re striving to close a funding gap of $23,000, and purchase data subscriptions and specialized market analysis tools required to analyze live market data, and develop their trading strategies.
Robogals
What they’re doing:
Robogals MUN is the local chapter of a global student-run organization dedicated to encouraging girls and gender-diverse youth to explore STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Since 2023, Robogals has engaged 500 students through workshops and 1,160 through events. Eighty-nine per cent of their event participants confirm they enrolled at Memorial because of a RoboGals event. Right now, they’re developing two new outreach events and will deliver 10 hands-on workshops throughout the year, while actively recruiting members from the Engineering One student body.
What they’re seeking:
MUN Robogals has an estimated funding gap of $13,500 for the 2025-26 year. This funding would be allocated across four main categories: professional development ($8,100) for executive training; technology ($8,000) for workshop equipment; outreach ($3,750); and promotional materials ($1,150).
Sidus Robotics
What they’re doing:
Sidus Robotics is designing and building a rover suitable for operation on the surface of Mars. They want to compete in the upcoming Canadian International Rover Challenge — a prestigious event that challenges participants to simulate early space settlement scenarios on an extraterrestrial surface. Their rover’s advanced systems are being explored for their commercial potential in remote inspection, industrial automation and planetary exploration.
What they’re seeking:
The team has a remaining funding gap of $13,143.32 to cover manufacturing the rover and to pay the significant travel costs associated with attending the competition.
Valiant Aerotech
What they’re doing:
Valiant Aerotech is advancing the use of Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) technology for emergency response capable of reconnaissance and payload delivery, such as detecting and extinguishing forest fires. They’re looking to successfully design, build and validate an autonomous firefighting drone with real-time thermal sensing in the Fire Reconnaissance and Extinguishing tasks at the upcoming Aerial Evolution Association of Canada competition.
What they’re seeking:
Their remaining funding gap sits at $10,998.02 to cover all necessary expenses, including event registration and travel, electrical equipment and other materials and manufacturing.
If you’re looking to sponsor one of these groups, contact John Walsh, Manager, Student Design Hub, at john.walsh@mun.ca.
