RUDN University students told about their participation in the CASE-IN Engineering Championship

In April, the RUDN University Engineering Academy hosted the qualifying stage of the XIV season of the International Engineering CASE-IN Championship in the field of Oil and Gas business. The fourteenth season of the competition was held under the general theme "Technologies of the future".

9 teams from the country's leading technical and economic universities demonstrated their skills in solving practice-oriented cases: RUDN University, Bauman Moscow State Technical University and the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation. There were 5 national teams from the RUDN University Engineering Academy.

The participants had to solve the case of "Monetization of gas without pipes", developed by PJSC Yakutsk Fuel and Energy Company (YATEK). Students developed comprehensive solutions for the integration of data centers (data centers) to the gas infrastructure of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). The topic is directly related to the updated strategy of YATEK, which has relied on the use of gas for energy supply of digital projects — data centers, mining and cloud computing.

The future engineers demonstrated a deep understanding of the technological processes of the oil and gas industry and proposed bold ideas at the intersection of IT and traditional energy.

Only two RUDN University teams made it to the semifinals of the championship. At this stage, the honor of the university was defended by the "But Beautiful" team consisting of 3rd-year students of the "Oil and Gas business" field.

According to the captain of the team, "But they are beautiful" Niki Zybareva, students have been participating in the competition for the second year in a row.

"The cases are different each time. This year it was dedicated to the monetization of gas without pipes — that is, alternative ways of selling gas. In the project, we considered the construction of natural gas-powered data centers as the main solution for YATEK. If we go deeper into the technical part, then in addition to the centers themselves, we also offered the sale of gas from processing for heating nearby villages near the data center," Nika Zybareva.

According to the girl, the most difficult thing was to figure out a topic in which you don't know anything. After all, the case was more related to energy than to the oil and gas business.

"Last time, the task concerned the development of the field, and everything was clear to us. In the same year, the solution went more into information technology. I had to study what data centers are, immerse myself in their structure, what they work on, where they can be built, cooling technologies and gas installations. It was difficult, but the team and I did it. Another difficulty is the time to defend. In the presentation, you fully describe the solution with all the tables and a complete analysis to show the experts that a good job has been done. But it still remains difficult for me to put a large amount of information in 6 minutes. However, we did not receive any penalty points either in the qualifying or in the semi-finals. If we talk about the final result, I am satisfied with all the work at both stages. I am glad that we were able to make it to the semifinals — not everyone gets such a chance, especially to bypass the senior courses and even the masters. Of course, it's a shame that we couldn't make it to the finals, but looking at our project last year, we've grown a lot in quality this year. We have an autumn cup and a major league before graduation, so we will prepare and try to perform even better," Nika Zybareva.

According to the results of the qualifying stage, the team "But beautiful" took the second place. And even if the guys didn't make it to the finals, participation in the competition became one of the key elements of professional training for them.

"Real industry challenges, our students learn to think systematically, go beyond standard solutions and take into account the economic feasibility of each technological step. The Department of Subsoil Use and Oil and Gas Business always supports such initiatives that turn theoretical knowledge into real competencies," Alexander Evgenievich Kotelnikov, Head of the Department of Subsoil Use and Oil and Gas Business, Chairman of the organizing committee of the qualifying stage of the championship.

The International Engineering CASE-IN Championship is the largest practice—oriented championship in In Russia and the CIS countries, to solve engineering cases for students studying in the fields of fuel and energy and mineral resources complexes. The project is included in The presidential platform "Russia is a land of Opportunity", and is also included in the "Science to Win" initiative of the plan for the Decade of Science and Technology in Russia.

A source