Kazan students took part in the international engineering CASE-IN championship

The qualifying stage was held in Kazan on April 12. The VII International Engineering Championship "CASE-IN", in which university students compete in technical skills. The championship is one of the projects of the Russia – the Land of Opportunities platform and is aimed at popularizing engineering and technical education in the country.

The championship is held in 57 universities across Russia, with a total of more than 7,000 students taking part in it. The Kazan State Power Engineering University became the venue of the "CASE-IN" in Kazan.

- The Youth Engineering Case Championship "CASE-IN" has been held for many years, our university has been in this movement for the fifth year, - commented Alexander Leontiev, First Vice-rector of KSEU. - At that time, it had the status of a national, later becoming an international one. I would like to note that the initiative to participate in the CASE-IN came from undergraduate students themselves. The teaching staff felt that this was a great opportunity to improve the quality of education. A club was organized, which is visited weekly by students and teachers, where teams are formed, preparing to participate in various professional competitions. The members of the club are motivated guys who want to solve specific engineering problems and become successful in the profession. In such competitions as CASE-IN, tasks are formed by large corporations, and their representatives act as experts. These are high-level professionals who are well versed in the issues of the industry. In this way, students prepare to solve the tasks they will face daily in their future work. In recent years, the KGEU has seriously updated its material and technical base, and in its current state, educational laboratories allow training professionals in accordance with all modern requirements. I would like to note that all laboratories and engineering centers are created in partnership with specific enterprises interested in obtaining relevant professionals. Business has seriously turned towards educational institutions. This makes education practice-oriented, which is beneficial for each of the parties.

The championship was attended by teams of 3-4 people, each of whom had to solve a unique case – a set of production tasks. They were given only 10 days for this purpose. Julia Slobodina, Irina Solovyova and Olga Mazneva, 4th year students of the KGEU, shared their impressions.:

- We have been participating in the CASE-IN for the second year. When developing a case, you have to work through a large amount of information, come up with your own solution for set goals, and prepare a presentation. It should be understood that the answer should not be trivial. The topic of our case turned out to be transient monitoring systems, which goes beyond the scope of our main specialization. This greatly broadens our horizons, and we have learned a lot during the preparation for the competition. The ability to analyze new information, solve specific practical rather than abstract tasks, and the ability to communicate with established professionals will all help in future work. For example, we needed to study the equipment produced by different enterprises, and we gained extensive experience in drafting requests to them, as well as technical documentation. We hope that we have managed to prove ourselves to future employers.

In their work, the participants of the "CASE-IN" got acquainted with the problems of the industry relevant to modern Russia.
Albina Denisova, Associate Professor, Team Leader:

"The team I led presented the work within the framework of a case study on automation of transient monitoring systems, their development and implementation in the Russian energy sector, in particular in the Far East," said Alina Denisova, Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical Equipment and Electrical Engineering of Enterprises, Organizations and Institutions at KGEU. - The case consisted of five tasks, and, in addition to engineering tasks, it was necessary to determine the economic efficiency of the implementation of such systems. The topic of the case is very relevant for our country, automated monitoring systems are actively used in international experience, while in Russia they are found mainly in the Central region. I believe that our students have done their job well, and we train specialists so that they can reason logically on given topics, search for information, and analyze it. The more often students are given creative tasks, the more they develop the skills and desire to apply them. Therefore, I find such championships extremely useful in training future specialists.

Experts from Tatarstan's leading energy companies acted as the jury of the qualifying stage of the championship, and they also developed cases for the contestants.

- Such championships are extremely useful, first of all, for students of specialized specialties, - said Mikhail Zyryanov, Head of the dispatch service of JSC Tatenergo. - Cases are formed by leading companies in the industry, and they do not have a single correct answer or solution. This allows participants to show their best qualities and discover new areas of knowledge that they can use in their future careers. The youngest participants were second-year students, which is great, because they are already learning to solve production problems at such a young age. At times, I was pleasantly surprised by the confident presentation of cases by the participants. Many students are already ready to solve real production tasks. 

The winners of the qualifying stage were the team of KGEU "Friends of Kirchhoff". The three prize-winners also included the teams "SoftPower" and "DK im.Tesla." JSC "Grid Company" presented a special prize to the Neutrino team on its behalf, and the Branch of JSC "SO UES" of the RDU of Tatarstan to the Sirius Li team. Now the winning team will participate in the finals of the VII International Engineering Championship "CASE-IN", which will be held in Moscow.

A source: Kazan Gazette