V.I. Vernadsky believed that under the influence of scientific thought and labor, the biosphere would be transformed into a noosphere - the sphere of mind. The Noosphere Association and its founder, Max Polyakov, adhere to the theory of the great scientist, and by their activities contribute to the dissemination of scientific knowledge and stimulate public interest in science. One of the events organized by the Noosphere for this purpose was the Star Track tournament.
The tournament covered three topics:
- CanSat
- Research missile systems
- Freestyle
In order to participate in Star Track, teams needed to prepare functional solutions for stated problems and present their ideas. At the finals, participants presented their projects during a 15-minute pitching before the expert jury, which included mentors from the Space Research Laboratory of the Engineering School Noosphere and Space Systems Engineering and Earth Observing System.
Source: Noosphere Engineering School (Facebook)
The winners of the tournament were the teams “DniproSkyLAB”, “UniversalRocket”, “CLASNARocket”, “Rocchetta Space Device” and “DH”.
StarTrack organizers, led by Max Polyakov, focused on CanSat topics. CanSat is microsatellites weighing no more than 350 g. For the first time such a satellite was developed by the professor of Stanford University Bob Twiggs in 1998. Since then, the CanSat movement was born (aimed mainly at students), competitions on this subject are held annually in the United States, Europe and Asia. But in Ukraine before StarTrack there was no such thing. Max Polyakov announced that he will continue to initiate contests on CanSat topics. The “DniproSkyLAB” team has developed launch vehicles to launch CanSat. Colleagues guys on the topic “UniversalRocket” set a goal to study the best ways to create rockets for CanSat, payload systems and launch sites.
“CLASNARocket” showed meteorological research single-stage rocket. Its principle of operation is based on a dual-mode engine. The project “Rochetta Space Device” is similar to the development of the previous team, but with a fundamentally different approach - the use of a hybrid rocket engine instead of the usual one.
Max Polyakov, along with the jury, also adequately evaluated the Freestyle nomination projects, where the youngest participants of the tournament won - the DH team with the Dron-Hunter frontier guard. All winners received awards of 5000 UAH from Max Polyakov. The next meeting date for StarTrack will be April 12, 2018, when the teams will present the working prototypes of their projects, which will be developed on the basis of the Noosphere Engineering School.
