This year, the regional stage of intellectual competitions was held in a new format. In conditions of self-isolation associated with the prevention of the spread of coronavirus infection, teams of students of energy departments and young engineers had been solving the case in the field of “Power Engineering” for 10 days, and then presented it to an expert jury online.

The participants' work was evaluated by representatives of industry companies – Rosseti Volga, RusHydro, T Plus, a branch of SO UPS of the Saratov RDO, as well as teachers of SSTU named after Yu. A. Gagarin, the university that is the organizer of the competition.

– This year the theme of the championship was related to hydropower. Future engineers were asked to find the use of composite materials at hydroelectric power plants. Most of the participants coped with the task, showed a high level of training and innovative solutions, despite the fact that for many this direction is not core,” said the Championship expert, head of the dispatch and technological department of the Pravoberezhnoye PD of the Saratov Branch of Rosseti Volga Arman Mukhambetzhanov.

The International Engineering Championship “CASE-IN” is an international competition system for solving engineering cases for schoolchildren, students and young specialists of the fuel and energy and mineral resource complexes. It is a part of the platform “Russia is a Country of Opportunities” and aims to popularize workers and engineering professions. This year, 15 teams fought for first place in the qualifying round of the championship. One of the teams also included the Volga power engineer – Ivan Brusyev – engineer of the insulation, overvoltage protection and testing service of Rosseti Volga. He is completing his second year of master's studies at SSTU.

– This is not the first time I'm participating in the championship. Last year, the team reached the second place,” Ivan said. His team proposed the use of composite fiberglass trash racks, fiberglass turbine blades, metal composite bearings on the turbine bearing assemblies. The expected effect is an increase in the efficiency of mechanisms and units of hydroelectric power plants, the service life of capital structures when they are reinforced with composite materials. Following the results of the qualifying round, the winning team will take part in the final tests of the International Engineering Championship “CASE-IN,” which will bring together representatives of 57 universities in Russia and the CIS countries.