On March 12, high school students from many cities of the country, including St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Zheleznogorsk, Kursk, have come to the National Research Nuclear University "MEPhI" for the final of the Olympiad of the National technological initiative in the profile "Nuclear technologies".
The purpose of the NTI Olympiad, organized by the Russian venture company and the Agency for strategic initiatives in partnership with the largest technical universities and corporations of the country, is to find and develop talents for the National Technology Initiative – a program to create fundamentally new markets and ensure global technological leadership of Russia by 2035. The Olympiad is held in 17 educational profiles that correspond to the sectoral priorities of scientific and technical development of Russia.
The Profile "Nuclear technologies" was assigned to MEPhI. This is a completely new direction of the competition, which appeared in 2017 when our University, interested in talented, motivated to engineering education entrants, offered a profile which corresponds to the main educational agenda of the University.
66 enthusiastic about science guys were selected to participate in the finals out of four thousand high school students. They were checked in physics, mathematics, theoretical foundations of nuclear technology and skills in solving problems.
Tasks for the final stage were developed by the staff of the SEC NEVOD of the , Institute of Nuclear Physics and Engineering at MEPhI, and this is not by accident. As the author of tasks said, a young scientist and teacher of SEC NEVOD Egor Zadeba, the Institute of Nuclear Physics and Engineering combines two areas: fundamental studies of the properties of matter, elementary particles and subatomic condition and applied studies related to nuclear technologies.
"That is why we decided to develop a project that would combine the features of both directions. During the final stage, the students should create a dosimeter that measures the radiation background in real time. At the same time, the same detecting elements act as a detector of cosmic rays, which can used to measure a microsecond lifetime of such elementary particles as muons. Thus, the device created by schoolchildren will simultaneously solve both the applied problem of radiation monitoring and the fundamental problem of studying the properties of the secondary cosmic ray flux."
It should be noted that the unique experimental complex NEVOD is the world's only scientific facility that allows to conduct both fundamental and applied research, such as forecasting the near-earth space, studies using natural particle streams on the Earth's surface.
As part of the NTI Olympiad, a large business program was organized for teachers, who are involved in organization and support of project and research students’ activities, as well as for University professors, carrying out pre-University specialized training of gifted students and career guidance. A series of round tables, seminars and master classes were held, where they comprehensively discussed the issues of formation of students' interest in engineering specialties.
During the seminar "High-tech engineering projects at school and university" the participants discussed the possibility to implement projects with high degree of scientific content and aimed at the final product in the educational process. Andrey Andryushkov, the dean of the engineering school of Moscow Polytechnic University pointed out that this type of project was an important form of engineering education. During the seminar, the participants presented different models of project training in the educational process of the University and school and shared their experience in their application.
The Head of methodology department of the Rosatom Corporate Academy Ulyana Ravedovskaya revealed the secrets and technologies of creation of modern educational formats, "in order to keep up with the times." During the master class "New educational formats: same language with the younger generation", participants learned about the technologies, the specifics of the new formats that can be used in the development of curricula for students, and tried to apply it in practice.
The Director of the Centre for the development of business and engineering competences of the Rosatom Corporate Academy Alexey Ponomarenko proposed to discuss the important topic of early professional orientation of schoolchildren and preparation to the Worldskills championship. Within the collective dialogue the participants were looking for answers to questions, how to interest students in obtaining engineering education and what role WorldSkills movement plays in it.
But the main part is announcement of Olympiad results!
The best team which coped with the task was "MICRON" (Margarita Kudryavtseva (Novokuznetsk), Semen Fadeev (Irkutsk), Egor Cherkashin (St. Petersburg), Vladislav Rumyantsev (Novosibirsk), Diana Timokhina (Novosibirsk)). The winners in the individual standings were high school students from Novokuznetsk, St. Petersburg, Irkutsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Zheleznogorsk and Novosibirsk. The full list of winners is on the website of the NTI Olympics.
"The NTI Olympiad is a real chance to understand where you can apply and realize your talents and knowledge, decide and choose the right path," Valery Karezin, Director of educational projects of the Rosatom State Corporation addressed the finalists. “For example, you can enter MEPhI or other supporting universities of the State Corporation, and we will provide you with interesting tasks in the construction of nuclear power plants, the creation of laser systems and supercomputers during the work at the enterprises of the corporation."
Addressing to the winners of individual championship, vice-rector of MEPhI Elena Vesna stressed that their success largely depended on team work. "I would like to say about one more team: during this period you joined in the research team of NEVOD - and therefore in the team of MEPhI. This is evident from your feedback on joint work during the Olympiad. Therefore, we will certainly be glad to see you as students of our University!”
“As for MEPhI, this year we decided to take the winners of NTI Olympiad without exams!” said Elena Vesna.
Winners and awardees received memorable gifts from organizing committee, and most importantly - diplomas that will give them privileges at the admission to the leading universities of the country, since the profile "Nuclear technology" is included in the list of the Russian Council of School Olympiads.
Irina Lyalikova, winner of the Olympiad, Kursk, school № 6:
– For me, this is a new experience, a new format of competitions. I did not participate in such events before. I like to work in a team, I gained new skills, such as programming.
Sergey Kiselev, winner of the Olympiad, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Lyceum №1:
– Yeah! It was a very interesting Olympiad, it required not only theoretical knowledge, but the ability to work in team, to come up with engineering solutions, that is, to do something with your hands, not just with your brain.
Ilya Kozlov, winner of the Olympiad, Zheleznogorsk, school №91:
- We came as a team of six people. The task was difficult and, I can say, unexpected. I learned from scratch how to program, gained experience. It has become much clearer to me what it is to study at a nuclear university, and now it is easier to decide where to go.
