The third Noosphere Space Games virtual rocket modeling competition has come to a close. On March 10, an award ceremony was held for the winners, who received their shares of a prize fund of 1,500 USD.
The third virtual rocket modeling competition attracted 650 participants. This time, schoolchildren, university students, and young scientists under the age of 24 were invited to participate. The task was to design a rocket that would deliver a space rover to the virtual planet of Dune (similar to Mars). The rover was required to traverse a given route on Dune’s surface, plant the Ukrainian flag, and return to the planet Kerbin (similar to Earth). Young engineers worked on their projects in a simulation game called Kerbal Space Program, which reproduces the conditions of real space and has a large catalog of parts with which to build a spacecraft.
The competition had two difficulty levels: Easy mode and Expert mode. The winners of the lower level received received special gifts from Association Noosphere, while the winners of the Expert competition shared a prize fund of 1,500 USD. In addition, the company Flight Control Propulsion held a special challenge, awarding its winner an internship at their company. The winner was Bohdan Borovyk from Lviv, who also won the Expert competition.
“Everyone who participated was creative, and I would love to see all of them working with our company. But according to the rules, we could only chose the most motivated candidate,” explained Vladyslav Taran, a representative of Flight Control Propulsion and member of the competition’s jury.
The competition’s winners were as follows:
Expert mode:
Bohdan Borovyk, 19, Lviv
Matvii Obukhov, 18, Kyiv
Daniil Nazarenko, 20, Sumy
Oleksiy Tylyk, 24, Kyiv
Ihor Kolosov, 17, Dnipro
Easy mode:
Ilya Napleta, 19, Lutsk
Olexandr Andersen Shevchenko, 15, Kyiv
Maria Bodniak, 12, Chernivtsi
Artem Ivanov, 18, Zhytomyr
Artem Kobets, 11, Kropyvnytskyi
“At first, the contest seemed easy. But when we reached the stage of 25 parts, I thought even at night how to go through it better. I am very satisfied with the result,” said silver medalist Matvii Obukhov.
The youngest competitor was only 7 years old, while the oldest was 24. In total, the Noosphere Space Games brought together young people from 140 cities and towns, as well as Ukrainians who are currently in Germany, Italy, the US, Spain, Bulgaria, Lithuania, and Canada.
“There were many talented young people competing who had such creative and unconventional approaches to solving challenges. The jury was impressed by the originality of ideas, the scale of concepts, and the technical complexity and novelty of the solutions,” said Ihor Volkanov, President of the Federation of Rocket Modeling Sports of Ukraine.