On April 18 a triumphant performance of young designers and engineers has taken place in a Lyceum №1523 of the MEPhI Pre-university. Its participants were the finalists of the All-Russian competition of pupils scientific works “Junior”, section “Engineering science and robotics”.

“Junior” has been held for 18 years. Over the years participants have presented excellent scientific and sometimes engineering works, but the latter was never legalized. And organizers decided to overcome this drawback. This year for the first time a new section “Engineering and robotics” was added to the competition. Its implementation allowed boys and girls, who can’t live without creative design and engineering work, to participate in the leading competition of school projects. The level of the finalists' works struck members of the competition jury. MEPhI leading teachers, engineers and designers, and guests of honor said unanimously about it.

A qualifying round of the section was attended by pupils from 8 regions of Russia: Nizhny Novgorod, Penza, Tambov, Ulyanovsk, Vladimir, Chelyabinsk, Udmurtia, Moscow and Moscow region. They submitted more than 250 projects. 30 best engineering and robotic works were selected to the final. All conformed to the basic requirement of the section – work must have a working model (model or prototype of engineering devices), but not formula, an idea or a suggestion. It is important that all projects were not only end products, but also original inventions.

In parallel with projects presentation pupils participated in the Olympiad in engineering physics and computer science. Thus, the assessment of each participant consisted of two components – presentation of an engineering project or robot model and result of the Olympiad.