Students and more students will benefit from the Diamond Discoverers program

Two student teams and four students of the Bialystok University of Technology received financial support from the Chapter of the Diamond Discovery Program. They will be able to invest in their own development and implementation of creative ideas.

The FutureVision team received PLN 7,000 from the Chapter of the Diamond Explorers Program. It is made up of this year’s high school graduates from the 1st General High School. Adam Mickiewicz in Bialystok: Wiktor Rojecki, Mateusz Jakoniuk and Jakub Kokoszkiewicz, a third-year student of the Academic Secondary School of the Bialystok University of Technology. Together they are implementing a project called Smart Home Vision System. They found that currently the owners of smart homes manage their system from the level of dedicated devices – often these are remote control, panel or voice assistant. Young innovators are going further and want to enable control of the smart home system with hand gestures.

Their goal is to create a system whose main components will be cameras and sensors that record movements and software that emits special signals on command. It’s a big job, that’s why the designers divided it into stages. They are currently trying to solve the problem of identifying the key points of the hand. They are trying to adapt the functionality of MediaPipe, an already existing tool based on artificial intelligence, to their idea. It is worth noting that in April 2023, the Smart Home Vision System project took second place in the Podlaskie qualification for the Technical Innovation Olympiad in Electronics and Mechatronics under the title of Young Innovator for secondary school students in the 2022 school year /2023. In 2021, Wiktor Rojecki and Mateusz Jakoniuk, as creators of the Xplorer robot prototype, which was supposed to bring the world of software closer to users, won the EL-ROBO-MECH competition for studies at the Białystok University of Technology.

Another 6,000 zlotys will go to the Orange Sky team. In this case, the team has supporters of electronic, space and rocket techniques. This team consists of high school graduates from I Liceum Ogólnoksztálące im. Adam Mickiewicz in Białystok: Bartosz Dąbrowski and Jakub Koniuch and Weronika Maciejczuk, a student of the Academic Secondary School of the Białystok University of Technology. Together they are developing their hobby and want to promote the creation of rockets in Poland. Orange Aerospace is developing a rocket design and has already received support from the Diamond Discovery Program twice (in 2021 and 2022). Young people continue their work. Thanks to the funding, they bought printers for car simulations. Then, in a rocket built with about two meters used to explore space, they improved the system used to recover the vehicle, that is, they installed a parachute and a locator. Orange Space will allocate more money to build and test the hybrid rocket engine. They even already have its design, which was created in cooperation with the engineers of the Polish Rocket Society.

Four students of the Bialystok University of Technology also received support for the Diamond Discovery Program in the form of scholarships:

Daniel Aleksiejczuk from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering

Alan Kondrusik from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering

Mateusz Sumorek from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering

Jakub Żukowski from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering

Daniel Aleksiejczuk will receive the Diamond Explorers Scholarship for the second time in a row. He is the winner of many competitions, eg the 2nd place winner in the Lego Sumo category in the RoboGame robot competition in 2021. He is also the owner of a two-time scholarship of the President of the City of Bialystok in the category of “innovative technical ideas “.

Mateusz Sumorek and Jakub Żukowski in previous years they benefited from the support of the Diamond Discovery Program as members of the construction teams. Currently, they are members of the IO Scientific Circle working at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, in which they collaborated to create projects such as:

– Multi-function CNC machine and control system to drive the device,

– an example of an electric skateboard used for physical therapy for people with disabilities

– solar station for fast charging of small electric vehicles.

Alan Kondrusik joins the group of Software scholarship holders for the first time. He is a third year automation and robotics student. He has several power projects to his credit. Among them, RC cars – ie remote controlled car models. Their construction is a challenge of design and construction in the field of electricity and mechanics. RC cars have miniaturized features in real cars and can reach speeds of up to 70 km/h. Alan changed his style by adding Venetian mirrors. He will participate in robot competitions in FreeStyle categories.

How does the Diamond Discovery Program work?

The Diamond Discovery Program is an initiative of the Białystok University of Technology implemented in cooperation with the largest companies in the region. Together, they form an Association that supports school children and talented students by providing them with funds to develop their innovative ideas and present them on the national and international stage.

Diamond Discovery Program Chapter includes: Bialystok University of Technology, Budimex SA, Coral W.Perkowski J.Perkowski sp.k., CynkoMet sp.z oo, Institute of Innovation and Technology of Bialystok University of Technology sp. . Mallow sp. z oo, Metal-Fach sp z oo, Rosti Poland sp z oo, SaMASZ sp. z o. o., Unibep SA, Białostockie Waterworks sp.

The jury tries to select those projects that provide interesting solutions in the fields of technology, engineering, construction, industrial design, mathematics and management. All applications are carefully analyzed and evaluated according to originality and innovation, and then award an amount of funding that students can spend, among others, on the purchase of equipment and services necessary for the implementation of projects or fees related to participation in competitions.

So far, the Association has financially supported more than 60 student teams, which received more than PLN 320,000 for their projects. zlotys. One of the best “Diamonds” was undoubtedly Petros Psyllos, an inventor who was awarded many times in the most prestigious competitions in Poland and the world.

(Source: PB / prepared by Cezarion / Photo: Dariusz Piekut / Białystok University of Technology)