Winter in the Noosphere community was full of interesting events. Let’s remember what these three months had in store.
In December, the second Ukraine-wide competition in virtual rocket modelling, Noosphere Space Games., Intermediate edition concluded. 850 schoolchildren and students under the age of 18 joined in. Participants worked on the mission for two and a half weeks and competed for a prize fund of $1,200.
On the eve of the Christmas holidays, the NGO “Association Noosphere” published a book with an incredible history. “Ukraine Space Hotel” by Australian writer Jade Maitre was illustrated by Noosphere Space Art Challenge participants. This year, the competition was interrupted by the war, but the organizers wanted to support Ukrainian children. They approached Jade Maitre with a chance to translate some of her space tales into Ukrainian. The author, after seeing the children’s drawings, offered instead to write a fairy tale to equal the drawings. This is how “Ukraine Space Hotel” appeared.
At the beginning of the year, we also celebrated the second anniversary of the revitalized Planetarium. The updated Planetarium Noosphere opened its doors, thanks to the NGO “Noosphere Association” and its patron Max Polyakov, at teh end of 2020.
In January, EOS Data Analytics, founded by serial entrepreneur and philanthropist Max Polyakov, successfully launched the first satellite of the world’s first agro-oriented EOS SAT constellation. The EOS SAT group will help fight climate change and ensure food security. EOS SAT-1 will monitor up to one million square kilometres every day. Thus, agribusiness representatives will be able to better control crop growth, optimize the use of resources based on productivity and vegetation maps, and evaluate the effectiveness of new plant protection products or fertilizers etc.
Later in January, the Noosphere Engineering School project- the WheelKeep bicycle safety system – toured the international consumer electronics exhibition CES in Las Vegas. This is a great opportunity for the startup to present its product to potential investors and customers, make useful acquaintances, and understand industry trends.
Gagarin Park entertained guests with a new art object – a huge bulletproof vest. The sculpture weighing 2.5 tons is constructed from automobile scraps and symbolizes our unity and determination. At the beginning of the war, body armor made of such recycled suspension springs saved hundreds of lives. The sculpture was created by Yevgeny Balagun from Zaporizhzhia. Since February, he has been working at the “Palyanytsya” volunteer center, where such supplies were produced.
And at the end of January, the third Noosphere Space Games started. 600 contestants under the age of 24 competed for a prize fund of $1,500. Senior technical students also had the chance to win an internship at Flight Control Propulsion.
And in February, the VEXcode VR Cleanup Challenge concluded. This was Ukraine’s first official competition with the American VEX robotics platform. Children aged 8 to 14 had to program a virtual robot that would clean the ocean floor in a special simulator and successfully complete the mission “Coral Reef Cleanup”. 783 schoolchildren from 23 regions of Ukraine registered to participate, as well as children living in Poland, Lithuania, Germany, Slovakia and even Japan. The winners in three age categories received gifts.
There are many more interesting projects to come. Spring will be no less busy for the Noosphere community. Follow for announcements and to join our events!