Future Skills Team Challenge: new technological products have been developed during the competition

On 5-8 December 2021, NRNU MEPhI hosted the Future Skills Team Challenge, which became the first stage of the Final of the 5th WorldSkills Russia National Competition.

The Skill Competition was attended by 30 teams from 20 universities from all over Russia. Students competed in 6 categories for two days. The winner in the Digital Opportunities for Business challenge was the team from the National Research Tomsk State University, the vice-champion was the team of The Yaroslav-the-Wise Novgorod State University, and the 3rd place was taken by the Omsk State Technical University. The winner in the Digital Manufacture challenge was the team of the Ural Federal University (UrFU). Students of the Far Eastern State University of Railway Transport won in the Virtual and Augmented Reality category, the 2nd place was taken by a team from Ugra State University, and the 3rd place was occupied by participants from the St. Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation. A team from the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI received the highest award in the Development of Electronic Devices challenge, the 2nd place was taken by students from the National Research Tomsk State University, and the 3rd place was taken by the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University. The gold medal in the Engineering Thinking. Karakuri challenge was won by the team of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, the silver medalist was the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, and the bronze medalist was the Moscow State University of Technology STANKIN. Students of the Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University won in the Technological Product Development category. 

As part of the competition, experts from among university professors and representatives of the real sector of the economy conducted assessments based on the following two focus areas. The first focus area was the identification of communication and cognitive skills through the evaluation of the developed product. The second focus area included monitoring the team and assessing its ability to interact effectively both inside the team and with the customer. 

To date, a comprehensive technological product cannot be developed and created alone. Thus, teamwork and a variety of skills are required. The tasks within the framework of this challenge are as close as possible to production processes: to create a popular product you need not only engineering and technical skills, but also soft skills, that is, cognitive / communication skills, as well as entrepreneurial thinking and the ability to present the product to the customer. By participating in this kind of competition, students get the opportunity to immerse themselves in the real conditions of their future work, and upon graduation, they have a portfolio of several implemented projects. 

In the Digital Manufacture category, the task was divided into two modules, and the participants located at different sites were creating the same solution. To complete the task, the participants had to demonstrate their communication skills: effectively assign tasks within the team, transmit information about the equipment on the site, and correctly report the task and its results using convenient means of communication. The format of the task made it possible to show that a modern professional is universal and can work not only in one specific area, but also in related areas.  

"Many people describe digital manufacture using the example of a robot that pours salt into a glass. In fact, digital manufacture is much more complicated and interesting. We can create a production environment where one person will observe the robot, and a group of professionals who are also involved in the project will be relieved of the need for daily presence at the facility, since the programme will have already been debugged. Modern digital manufacture practically excludes people from work processes. We can predict the future by creating a complete digital twin of the facility, constructing a virtual building, and installing machines to determine whether it will be profitable for us to implement such a project or not. One of the tasks of the Future Skills Team Challenge was to calculate the airport workload. We had data on the number of people who came to the airport and the time of their arrival, and we had to determine whether the airport would withstand such a workload, as well as how many people would have time to get on board, and how many people would be late for their flights. It was a real challenge, however, we coped with it and took first place," said Alexander Kynkugorov, winner in the Digital Manufacture category, student of UrFU. He performed the task directly on the Skill Competition site, while a member of his team was in Yekaterinburg. "First of all, we had a great time on the site: we joked and helped each other. It was a pleasure to work with Siemens software. When we found out that only one representative from the team could personally take part in the championship, we felt very disappointed. Of course, such an approach complicated the interaction between the participants. We went through an effective process of team building at the Skill Competition, as we tried very hard to listen and understand each other," he added.

During the Digital Opportunities for Business challenge, students had to develop an application to visualize the arrangement of tools in the garage for a Formula 1 team, as well as a service that makes it possible to monitor the position of cars in the race in real time. This category consisted of several parts: Data Analysis and Visualization, AR/VR, Cryptography, Information Security, Electronics and Embedded Systems. 

According to Ekaterina Ivanenko from 1C, who was an expert on this category, no specialist alone has sufficient knowledge and skills to independently implement such a solution. That is why there were 3 people in the team, each of whom was responsible for his own activity area. "It was interesting to look at teamwork and how the participants assigned responsibilities and chose who and which of the modules would perform. Modern business dictates some modified requirements for professionals, since they no longer need a person who just knows to adopt all these technologies, as each professional should also assesses what is needed right now to solve a specific problem and how to apply this or that tool correctly within the team. Now, when a person solves a problem, he/she is not limited in communication, as we try to look at the future professional as an employee of the company. The competitive environment is as close as possible to real life. Interesting solutions were proposed by the Skill Competition participants, and those algorithms can be useful right now," Ekaterina said.

The Engineering Thinking. Karakuri category was included in the Skill Competition programme for the second time. For the first time, such a contest was held as part of the DigitalSkills 2021 competition. Participants need to develop engineering solutions and apply teamwork skills to create a mechanism to optimize the business process. Each of the solutions developed by the teams had a unique design. 

"We developed a Karakuri device for transporting payload from the dispenser to the bunker. It was a real business case and we needed a solution that could be implemented in a real production environment. We didn't have enough time: technically, the whole installation worked properly, but it could have been done even better. We discussed what mechanism we could propose, drew a sketch of it, as well as tried to offer various solutions and justify their pros and cons. Now the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University knows what Karakuri is. We are engineers, so we thought we could apply our skills to a greater extent here. We are satisfied with the solution that we eventually created. We have gained skills that will definitely help us in the future, and we will include our product in our portfolio. Teamwork is very important for our category. Time is limited, and there is a lot to do. We had to reach a quick agreement and work together effectively. We did not quarrel and worked very effectively. Sociability was important, because we had to present our final project at the pitching. We had to describe how the mechanism worked and why our solution, in our opinion, was the best of all possible ones," Dmitry Ksenzov, Gleb Andrianov, and Ivan Shevtsov from the Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University said as the winners in this category.

The results of Future Skills Team Challenge demonstrated the level of Future Skills education at each higher institution, both in terms of working with emerging technology and in terms of team organization, presentation skills and entrepreneurial thinking. The competitors obtained a detailed assessment of their skills based on WorldSkills standards, while the universities gained an understanding of how prepared their students were for the digital world.