14-year-old Kanav Jain wins UK Young Engineer award for medicine delivery drone

Scottish student Kanav Jain has won the UK Young Engineer of the Year title for AeroAid, an autonomous medicine delivery aircraft. The low-cost VTOL project aims to help remote communities receive urgent supplies when road access is limited.

In Short

• AeroAid is designed to carry medicines to places with poor road access
• The autonomous quadplane can take off and land vertically in tight areas
• Jain built the project as a low-cost option for humanitarian deliveries

A Scottish school student has earned the title of UK Young Engineer of the Year after developing an autonomous aircraft aimed at making emergency medicine deliveries easier in remote and hard-to-reach areas.

Kanav Jain, an S4 student from Broxburn, Scotland, won the top engineering honour at The Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Competition 2026. He entered the competition through First Step Robotics, a community group in West Lothian, with his project called ‘AeroAid: autonomous VTOL quadplane’.

Jain's project focuses on a practical problem faced by communities that have limited or unreliable road connectivity. His aircraft has been designed to transport medicines and other essential supplies to locations where conventional delivery systems can be slow or difficult to operate.

AIRCRAFT TO HELP REMOTE COMMUNITIES

The AeroAid project combines autonomous flight with vertical take-off and landing capability. The concept is based on using a relatively small and affordable aircraft that can transport essential medical cargo without depending on established road networks.

According to EngineeringUK, Jain was motivated by the difficulties faced by people living in rural and remote regions, particularly when emergency supplies need to reach areas where reliable road access is unavailable.

Rather than focusing only on drone technology as an engineering exercise, Jain developed the project around a humanitarian use case. The aircraft is intended to offer a faster and more accessible way of moving medicines and other critical supplies to isolated communities.

The project also reflects Jain's interest in drones. He developed the aircraft as a low-cost solution, with the broader aim of making this type of technology useful for humanitarian deliveries rather than limiting it to expensive or specialised applications.

Jain's achievement comes through The Big Bang Competition, a national UK programme for young people aged 11 to 18 that recognises projects in science, engineering and technology. The 2026 awards were presented at The Big Bang Fair, where students showcased their innovations.

The UK Young Engineer of the Year award is supported by Thales. Jain's project was selected for the combination of engineering skills, creativity and its potential to address a real-world problem.

- Ends