Stavropol's future power engineers are among the top ten at the CASE–IN championship

 The results of the International Engineering Championship "CASE-IN" have been summed up in Moscow. More than 600 students and young professionals from Russia and Belarus competed for victory in one of the projects of the presidential platform "Russia – the land of Opportunities". The honor of the North Caucasus Federal University in the field of "Electric Power Engineering" was defended by two teams.

The International Engineering CASE-IN Championship is a team competition among schoolchildren, students and young specialists in solving engineering cases. This year, the competition was held in eight areas: geological exploration, mining, metallurgy, oil and gas, petrochemistry, digital atom, design engineering and electric power industry. The latter has traditionally become the most popular area of the championship. It brought together students from 34 universities in Russia and Belarus.

The championship opened in March with the qualifying stages of the Student League. They were held in a mixed (distance and full-time) format on the basis of NCFU and other partner universities of the project. The best teams advanced to the semifinals, where they presented their projects remotely. The most worthy participants were invited to Moscow for the intramural final. 36 teams competed for victory here, two of which represented NCFU.

The contestants had two tasks to choose from from the largest companies in the country's energy sector. JSC SO UES invited young specialists to develop solutions for the development of regional energy systems, and PJSC FGC UES to find applications for digital technologies in the development of a distribution network company. NCFU representatives were interested in the second task. The participants had only ten days to prepare. During this time, the teams had to analyze the companies' targets, assess the impact on the work processes of the pandemic, consider possible scenarios of similar events in the future and propose the introduction of specific digital technologies.

"We had to solve a case study on how to ensure the sustainable development of the energy company, taking into account the pandemic., – said Viktor Mikhailenko, a first-year student of the NCFU Master's degree, a multiple finalist of the CASE-IN championship, captain of the My Dream team. – We were looking for solutions that would automate all processes as much as possible and minimize human involvement. For example, semi-automatic switching forms are currently used at electrical substations. We suggested replacing them with fully automatic ones. In addition, our team presented the digital technology "Electrician". This is a special software that allows you to automate and simplify document management, and minimize personal contacts when approving documents."

The MDDA team also presented interesting solutions. So, the students suggested using the "Tightrope Walker" technology. She suggests entrusting the diagnosis of power lines to robots.

"The quadcopter sits on the wires and inspects them, – explained the captain of the team Mikhail Lobanov. – It looks like fiction, but experiments on the use of such robots have already been conducted. Our team also believes that it is necessary to implement smart sensor systems to improve the quality of monitoring of power lines and reduce accidents on them. Finally, we suggested using a special application and a smartwatch with social distance sensors to optimize the work of staff in a pandemic. If the latter is violated, employees will receive a warning. Also, according to the students' idea, the smart gadget should measure the temperature, pressure and oxygen level in the blood of the company's employees."

The decisions of the future specialists were highly appreciated by the expert commission, which included representatives of partner companies and universities of the championship. The MDDA team took the 6th place, and the My Dream team took the 10th place.

"Our teams are ranked among the top ten in the country year after year., – Dmitry Kostyukov, the curator of the CASE-IN championship at NCFU, a finalist of the League of Young Specialists as part of the university's teaching team, noted. – This year, the conditions of the competition have changed, and for the first time, two university student teams received a ticket to the finals. These are the experienced team of "My Dreams" and the newcomers of "MDDA". The latter brought together undergraduate freshmen, but despite their youth, lack of experience in participating in such competitions and solving case studies, they were able to offer worthy solutions to difficult tasks related to the development of the country's electric grid complex. Next year, we will have a new discipline at the university, "Engineering cases: from practical tasks to innovative solutions." Students will learn how to work in a team, get acquainted with the methodology of solving cases, prepare presentations and defend their decisions. We hope that thanks to this, even more representatives of the university will be able to get a ticket to the finals of the international engineering championship and will show excellent results there."

A source