The Polytech team was among the three finalist teams of the National Technology Initiative competition "The First Element. Air."

Having successfully passed the qualifying stage of the NTI competition, in mid-March the polytechnics hosted an expert competition commission. The experts arrived at the university in order to verify the availability of technologies and developments that allow creating fuel cells on our database during the second qualifying stage of the competition. The second stage of the competition was also passed successfully, and our team was in the final!

In total, 12 applications were submitted for participation in the competition, only three teams managed to reach the final: NaukaSoft (Experimental Workshop NaukaSoft LLC, Moscow), BVS (Unmanned Helicopter Systems JSC, Moscow) and Polytech (consortium of the M.I. Platov YURSPU (NPI), Skoltech and InEnergy, Novocherkassk and Moscow).

Already in July, the finalist teams will have to demonstrate their power plants in action, that is, put them on a copter and launch them into the air. The winner will be the team whose hydrogen-fueled aircraft will last the longest in flight mode, but not less than three hours. The prize fund of the contest will be 60 million rubles.

It is expected that in case of overcoming the technological barrier of the competition, energy sources with fundamentally new characteristics will be created, which will allow to multiply the time of continuous stay of drones in the air (now it is small and on average does not exceed half an hour).

"Overcoming this barrier will allow the technology to enter new markets. We are talking, first of all, about robots and quadrocopters. Robotics is actively developing, and the energy intensity of power supplies is extremely important for this industry. As for the quadrocopters, the greater their energy intensity and less mass, the longer they will fly. Quadrocopters can be used to carry out complex assignments, for example, to solve the problem of the "last mile" in logistics or for cartographic survey," said Yuri Dobrovolsky, head of the NTI Competence Center for Technologies of New and Mobile Energy Sources of the IPHF RAS.

The Polytech team includes six representatives of the YURSPU (NPI) - the head of the team, Doctor of Chemical Sciences, Professor N.V. Smirnova; engineer of the Research Institute of Electromechanics, the author of the installation Ivan Vasyukov; leading engineer of the Research Institute of TSK Evgeny Anisimov, senior researcher of the Research Institute of NTiNM Alexandra Kuriganova and two undergraduates - Nikita Fadeev and Tatiana Molodtsova.

Another competitive barrier has been passed. We wish our team to cope with the competitive task - to successfully overcome the technological barrier - and become a winner!