KuzSTU hosted the qualifying stage of the CASE-IN championship

The official opening of the qualifying stage took place in KuzSTU Student League of the International Engineering CASE-IN Championship. In 2026, the championship is being held for the fourteenth time and is united by the cross-cutting theme "Technologies of the future".

The organizers of the championship are the Reliable Change Foundation, the Non-profit Partnership Youth Forum of Mining Leaders, the Astralogica company and the presidential platform "Russia – the Land of Opportunities".

Face-to-face case defenses have also started in the following areas:: Mining, Thermal Power Engineering, Electric Power Engineering, as well as the new direction of Digital Automation, which was partnered with one of the leading gold mining companies in Kazakhstan, AK Altynalmas JSC.

The case is devoted to the development of technological solutions for the introduction of unmanned dump trucks at the Akbakai mining and processing plant. The participants had to analyze the world experience, propose their own engineering solutions to improve the efficiency of quarry rock transportation and evaluate their economic efficiency, safety and scalability.

Six teams presented their solutions in the Digital Automation area.

The "OverJobs" team became the winner of the qualifying stage of the CASE-IN The team consists of Vladimir Sakharov, Artur Salmin, Pavel Ilyin and Captain Stas Yakushev. The guys have developed a project for an autonomous transport system with a single control center.

The students proposed using a hybrid autonomous platform based on 70-ton electric dump trucks. Key innovations:

• managing multiple machines by a single operator;
• phased implementation of the technology;
• integration with the existing enterprise infrastructure.

In addition, the guys not only adapted the system to an average quarry (1.2 million tons of ore per year), but also developed their own risk assessment system for the conditions of Kazakhstan, taking into account climatic and regulatory factors.

According to the students' calculations, their solution allows to increase the volume of transportation per flight and reduce energy consumption.

The second place was taken by the NoOps team consisting of captain Mikhail Pyutsep, Artem Yaroslavtsev, Vladislav Smolin and Kirill Zhuravlev. The students presented a project based on the creation of a unified digital ecosystem of careers.

Their solution is based on a three-level automation model.:

1. The control level is intelligent dispatching, which optimizes routes, speed, and equipment load in real time.
2. The network layer is the deployment of a Private LTE/5G network or the use of an existing fiber–optic network to ensure stable communication with a delay of less than 20 ms.
3. Field level – equipping dump trucks with a complex of sensors: LiDAR and radars for operation in dust and fog conditions, as well as GNSS/RTK modules for positioning with an accuracy of 2-5 cm. A V2X (Vehicle-to-Everything) system for data exchange between machinery and road infrastructure.

The team proposed to create a digital twin of the Beskampir quarry, including: digitization of the road network, separation of the zones of operation of autonomous equipment and personnel, as well as the placement of charging infrastructure at key points. The formation of a single digital ecosystem of the quarry allows us to move from disparate automation to the concept of an "Intelligent Mine".

According to the team, the implementation of the solution will allow:
• reduce energy costs by 3-4 times by switching to electric traction;
• Reduce staff costs by up to 60%;
• reduce maintenance costs by 25-30%;
• increase the effective operating time of the equipment (due to the absence of downtime);
• Reduce operating costs by up to 30% and increase productivity by 18-20%.

The bronze medalist was the Apishka team: Alexey Zhestkov, Egor Zhilin and Pavel Sineikin.

The work of the participants was evaluated by experts: Associate Professor of the Department of Applied Information Technologies of KuzSTU Anna Tailakova, Mikhail Shvachich, a practicing teacher at the Higher School of Economics, programmer at KALITERO LLC Ivan Trofimov, as well as representatives of the FITCUUH SB RAS, Chief Scientific Secretary Peter Nikolaev, Research Associate Sergey Kizilov and Senior Researcher Igor Kuznetsov.

The winners of the championship were: 

the direction of "Thermal power engineering"
3rd place - "Hearts of the System" team, KuzSTU branch in Prokopyevsk
, 2nd place - AMD team
1st place - the Thermoeds team

the direction of "Mining"
, 3rd place - the "ZPGD" team
2nd place - Antrocit team
, 1st place - Geotim team

The Electric Power Industry direction
3rd place - the "Energy Vectors" team
, 2nd place - the "100kWt" team
1st place - the Kuzbass Express team

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