Artem Zemtsov: The International Championship is a good test for our students

The past academic year can be considered very fruitful for students of the Department of "Power Supply of Industrial Enterprises" of Sf SamSTU. The Syzran team adequately represented the branch at The International Engineering CASE-IN Championship in the Student League.

These are the largest practice-oriented competitions in Russia and the CIS countries for solving engineering problems. The essence of the tournament is as follows. Each team receives a case study, which is a complex task with different solutions. In ten days, you need to come up with your own way out of the proposed situation, give a feasibility study and prepare a presentation for speaking to experts.

For five years now, the Sf SamSTU team has been participating in the championship (Electric Power Industry). Her coach is always Artem Zemtsov, Candidate of Technical Sciences, Associate Professor, Deputy Head of the EPP Department. We met with him to talk about the championship, as well as about modern approaches to training specialists in the field of electric power industry.

- Artem Ivanovich, first of all, please tell us about the CASE-IN competitions.

- The case championship involves offering ways to solve practical problems in different industries. But rather, it's about finding talented young people who can think fast and efficiently. For our students, participation in this league is an experience in solving non-standard urgent tasks, as well as an opportunity to show themselves as human resources in front of a foreign audience. After all, the jury members are mostly production workers.

- What specific tasks were you asked to solve?

- For example, to create power supply systems: in one case - a woodworking village in the taiga, in the other - the Yamal Peninsula. In 2017, the teams dealt with the problem of losses during energy transportation in the networks. By the way, we received a special prize from Orenburgneft JSC for the originality of solving this problem. One of the topics of this year concerned diagnostic methods for power transformers and power transmission lines. Our team took a great interest in solving this problem. The case format is generally very attractive. Students like the freedom of creativity, the search for new things, and the opportunity to offer something of their own. Next academic year, we want to hold our internal championship for second and third year students.

- In general, how do you approach the training of future specialists in modern realities?

- We teach them to think, to work a lot with literature, to search for information, to analyze it. Our graduates are in demand at the SNPZ, TYAZHMASH plant. They are employed in large network companies in the oil and gas industries. This is an indicator that we are training good specialists.

- Do production workers somehow participate in the training of future personnel?

- Unfortunately, there is no special interest yet. Our students are expected to practice only at Tyazhmash and SNPZ. But one enterprise does not provide an understanding of the energy sector as a whole. To do this, you need to visit different production facilities. Now we are trying to solve this problem.

- How consciously do young people choose the profession of electric power engineering?

- Most of them are quite conscious. Everyone understands that the energy complex is the most attractive. Including salaries. Girls also have something to do. Moreover, it is not necessary to climb the poles at all. There is a lot of other work to do. For example, according to electricity metering statistics.

We have mostly good students. I like working with them. To find what they are interested in. Think about how to submit the material. We don't force the guys to study, but motivate them. We set tasks that need not only to be solved, but also to try very hard. The desire to move forward remains with our guys forever. If my graduates get into a good company, for example, a start-up company, they stay in touch with the university for the first year and a half. They improve their skills, make innovative proposals, and defend their opinions to the management. They end up building a successful career.

Source: Volzhskie Vesti