This is the slogan of the “Young Innovator” competition, the winners of the 17th edition of which were announced at the Gala organized on May 23 at the Warsaw House of Technology.
The competition is held under the patronage of the Minister of National Education, so the host of the event, Janusz M. Kowalski, welcomed Justyna Domińczak and Karol Markiewicz from the Department of Supporting Talented Students of the Department of General Education and Digital Transformation of the Ministry of National Education as the first guests, and then, among others, Agnieszka Marczak, representing Edyta Demby-Siwek, President of the Patent Office of the Republic of Poland , Magdalena Borek-Daruk and Anna Rybacka-Dybcio, President and Vice-President of the SIGMA-NOT Publishing House of Technical Books and Magazines, Martyna Jachimowicz, Editor-in-Chief of “Przegląd Techniczny” which is the media patron of the competition, Jerzy Rożek, President of the Warsaw House of Technology NOT, Prof. Włodzimierz Miszalski, chairman of the Scientific and Technical Committee of the Federation of Scientific and Technical Associations NOT for the Development of Technical Personnel, and Ewa Mańkiewicz-Cudny, president of FSNT-NOT, chairwoman of the Competition Jury. And also Dr. Maciej Wieloch, President of INFINI ASI, and Renata Hawrylik from MEDISENSONIC, which were the sponsors of the Competition.
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– People of technology are the creators of everyday objects that make our work easier and help us develop – Ewa Mańkiewicz-Cudny noted in her speech. She recalled the contribution of Polish engineers in regaining independence, and then – speaking about the present – emphasized that young innovators notice the changes taking place in our environment and either try to counteract them with their ideas or make it easier for us to adapt to them. The ingenuity of young people is developing more and more. In techniques, the knowledge that they are supposed to convey dominates, and young people have ideas because they observe something and want to solve it.
The FSNT-NOT President’s Award was received by Szymon Bójczuk, Alexander Falkiewicz, Filip Tomaszewicz and Franciszek Pastuszek, students of the 8th grade of the Private Primary School Akademia Montessori in Pruszcz Gdański, for the project “Seeing Glasses”.
The absent winners who participated in the “green school” were represented by their supervisor Aneta Pospiech, a biology, geography, nature and physics teacher who supervised the preparation of the awarded project: – They are intended to help disabled people who are unable to move around well on a daily basis to reach their destination safely by overcoming numerous barriers. Modern glasses with many sensors will support blind people because the impulses reaching them from the environment will “enrich” them, for example, apart from informing them about obstacles, they will “tell” them that the sky is blue, and thus allow them to “see” what they cannot feel with other senses.
– I found this work very innovative. I always try to reward primary school or high school students because I believe it is more difficult for them to implement their ideas. The competition was created under the slogan “I have an idea for an innovative solution”, and I am looking for the most innovative one – Ewa Mańkiewicz-Cudny explained her choice. – I draw your attention to ideas such as a “car nanny” that prevents you from leaving your child in the car. Yet we hear about the tragedies caused by such behavior. I am impressed that children see this too and came up with such an idea, so I emphasize its originality and innovation. Artificial intelligence and hydrogen are emerging – it is clear that young people are following trends.
The 10-person Jury assessed the works completed in the past school year by students of primary and secondary schools (high schools and technical schools) in terms of, among other things: ingenuity, originality of the solution, usefulness, impact on improving safety conditions, availability of the materials used, aesthetics of workmanship, prepared documentation and design, and teamwork skills. Their authors, which is worth emphasizing, had to determine, to the extent possible, the impact on the environment of both the production process of a given product and the resulting waste, as well as its “scrapping” (disposal, disposal). It was noted that all the works that passed to the third stage presented a high level and demonstrated the creativity of children and youth and great involvement of caregivers.
The full list of winners is available at www.not.org.pl in the Olympiads and Competitions tab.
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In the “Primary School” category, first place was taken by Marcin Łaszcz, a 7th-grade student of Primary School No. 355 named after Jana Wedel in Warsaw, for the project “Hybrygen – Mobile, Hybrid and Zero-Emission Power Generator” prepared under the supervision of Anna Sochacka, M.A. – I saw a water turbine on the internet and decided to improve it a bit by adding a solar panel to draw energy from the river current and the sun. The work took me less than a month. The project is working, and now I am improving it – told me winner .
In the “General Secondary School” category, the highest score was given to the project “AQUA GUARDIAN – Baltic Barriers of the Future” by Alex Petit and Maksymilian Dobrowolski, second-grade students of the 3rd General Secondary School with Bilingual Divisions. Polish Navy in Gdynia, prepared under the supervision of Anna Rzepa, MA. – We travel a lot around the world and we have seen the problem with plastic everywhere. So we want to block its flow into the Baltic Sea. For over a year we have been working on a model of a “dam” adapted to smaller rivers. It’s not working yet, but its prototype has just been appreciated. It is scalable, so it can be used on all rivers – announced the winners. It is particularly worth emphasizing that all the winners in this category attend the second grade of this high school, and the preparation of the awarded works was supervised by mgr Anna Rzepa!
In the “Technical School” category, first place was taken by Łukasz Jabłoński from the Technical School of Modern Technologies. John Paul II at the Secondary School Complex in Kleszczów for the project “Active Hand Prosthesis Controlled by Bioelectric Impulses” prepared under the supervision of Dr. Eng. Krzysztof Feji. The winner was absent, as he was writing extended physics (he was not the only one of the winners), and the award was received by the deputy director of the School Complex – Aleksandra Ignasiak-Smela.
The awarded students received an invitation to a free presentation of their solutions at the International Warsaw Invention Exhibition IWIS 2024.
At the end of the Gala, Janusz M. Kowalski announced the winners of the XXXVII competition of the Society for Culture and History of Technology “Numerus Primus Inter Pares” for the best scientific and technical journals, honoured by Prof. Dr . Eng. PhD Czesław Waszkiewicz, chairman of the Jury, and Bronisław Hynowski, president of the Society for Culture and History of Technology. Also present was Włodzimierz Hausner, member of TKiHT, former director of the NOT Innovation Centre.
I will add that in the room on the other side of the corridor, awards were received by “Young Ecological Innovators” from secondary schools, winners of the Technical Innovation Olympiad in Environmental Protection for the 2023/2024 school year organized by the Polish Union of Inventors and Rationalizers Associations, which belongs to FSNT-NOT.
JB
