Navigating the future

The country’s scientific and technical elite is being successfully formed in the National Children’s Technopark

Aleksei Yavorsky

Extend an iron hand

Ksenia Belikova presses a button — and the iron hand comes to life, begins to move its fingers like a person. This is the girl’s third time at the National Children’s Technopark; she came from Voronovo, an urban-type settlement in the Grodno Region.
“The work has begun! This is a collaborative robot, a human companion. Equipped with a ‘computer vision’ system that tracks people’s movements. As soon as you find yourself in the zone of his actions, he immediately slows down. Try to get closer and the mechanism will stop. Everything is for safety!” the schoolgirl happily snaps her fingers.
The car actually freezes as soon as the ninth grader takes a step. The girl’s area of interest is robotics. He dreams of launching a budget analogue of a bionic prosthesis for a human hand. I have already developed a project based on a pneumatic system. She remembers: when she first entered the laboratory, her breath took away. The ‘stuffing’ of each is impressive: robotic cockroaches, 3D printers, signal generators, microscopes, unmanned aerial vehicles. The equipment that university students use and work in enterprises became available to schoolchildren overnight.
Students in 9–11 grades study in the technology park in 15 areas — from architecture and design to aerospace technologies and nanoindustry. For example, today they need to prepare a technological task for creating parts on an industrial laser installation. And tomorrow — to prescribe from start to finish a programme for the virtual rehabilitation system. Seems difficult? Undoubtedly! University teachers help you cope with difficult projects. So Sergei Prokhorovich, who usually gives lectures to BNTU students, is giving the guys another lesson in robotics. He emphasises that future scientists and innovators are trained here, “Our task is to show promising trends in the industry. Together we come up with a technical idea, refine it and develop it. They have already created a robotic manipulator, a guide. Later, the future student will be able to work on the project at the university and, finally, release it into production. This is ideal. It is clear that not every idea will be realized, but competencies will not go away. I believe that our graduates, after studying at universities, will be able to come up with new technical solutions and occupy high positions.”

Yelizaveta Gurman

The right environment

A child from any part of the country can come here to study. However, simply submitting an online application is not enough. Already at the first stage, you will have to prove your knowledge — submit a research project to the court or have a diploma from an educational competition at least at the regional level. At the second stage — complete a test task to test technical, analytical and spatial thinking. Then go through an interview and choose directions in accordance with the number of points scored. Why such a complex and multi-step path? So that the best of the best come here. They are given support for development and formed, as it is fashionable to say today, an appropriate environment.
Aleksei Yavorsky came from the small village of Videborets, in the Brest Region. The whole school sent off him to Minsk, 
“I wanted to prove that anything is possible, first of all, to myself. It is not necessary to study at any special educational institution. For example, we have about 40 students, a simple rural school, but the teachers are excellent.”
Now the guy lives in a techno-house, where each block has two rooms for two people, a toilet and a shower. There are gyms and sports halls, self-training rooms, and a rhetoric hall. Five meals a day are provided for children. “You didn’t have to take any money with you,” Aleksei laughs.
The state covers all expenses — just study! Shift duration is 24 days. Regular school subjects are also planned in the children’s schedule. Additionally, they organise events, excursions, and can attend clubs: swimming pool, dancing. But the main emphasis is on classes in areas.

Nikita Bruev and Sofia Martinkevich

Mask, I know you

In the hands of the head of the aerospace laboratory, Dmitry Yakovlev, is something mysterious, reminiscent of a golden mask. Together with students, they create an aircraft that is useful in agriculture. This miracle device is bound to be a godsend for farmers: it flies at the speed of an airplane, and can hover in the air like a quadcopter. He is capable of finding and photographing problem areas of crops, taking air samples, and spraying plants in hard-to-reach places. The Technopark is already negotiating with the Academy of Sciences about creating a real flying model. And it was invented by Anastasia Gubernatenko from Novopolotsk.
Children’s thinking is amazing, and if you add the rationality of an adult to it, joint discoveries can be even more interesting, says Vera Klintsevich, head of the Green Chemistry laboratory, “Our guys were very inspired by Belarusian scientists Dmitry Grinshpan and Tatyana Savitskaya, who developed biodegradable edible films based on polysaccharides. Schoolchildren came up with a new use for this packaging: they created a useful film for packaging candies containing fish oil. As well as chewing tablets with valerian, cough syrup, and activated charcoal.”
The National Children’s Technopark has agreed on roadmaps with the country’s ministries and co-operation plans with organisations. The task ahead is not easy: the formation of a personnel reserve for knowledge-intensive and high-tech industries, notes the director of the educational institution, Sergei Sachko, “Today there is a struggle for talented, motivated children — you see what policies individual countries are pursuing.
 To retain our golden youth, we must definitely support them. And with deeds, not words! By our example, we must show that in our country it is possible to create, develop and earn money. Therefore, on behalf of the President, we are organizing work with representatives of the real sector of the economy. Our main goal is the practical application of students’ developments in factories, plants, and enterprises.”
About 100 projects are defended here every shift. Be sure to invite potential employers so that they can notice the future employee. If they wish, they can supervise it already at the university. Today, university educational programmes are very flexible — a student can receive exactly the knowledge that he needs in the workplace, especially when it comes to targeted training.

Denis Filon

However
Competition in the National Children’s Technopark — more than three people per place. Over 2.5 thousand students from all over the country have studied here since 2021: 2118 from cities, 412 from rural areas.

By Taisiya Azanovich

Photos by Ilya Shvedko