Final Countdown: Flying Drone Contestants Passed the Last Checkpoint
Moscow. 24 teams and 5 individuals passed the fourth checkpoint of the Flying Drones contest and got the chance to compete in the final battle for the 1 million Ruble prize.
According to the contest rules, all contestants had to submit by midnight July 21 (July 21 at 24:00) a detailed data sheet and demonstrate – as part of the contest program – their drones’ capability to automatically detect a finish mark and successfully land to a landing pad. 29 contestants passed to the final of those 72 rivals who survived the third checkpoint.
Contestants from Moscow and Moscow Region had to pass a test within an hour on the special-purpose site built by CROC, while competitors from other Russian regions had to submit a video presentation.
“Only twenty Moscow competitors came to our test site to perform the last contest task. Unfortunately, some contestants had failed to prepare their drones by July 21. But even those who were sure to be ready for the last mission had bad tries. That proved once again the importance of drone sensors sensitivity, quality of special software and algorithms (such as stabilization, and mark and location detection), and weather and lighting conditions. Drones flew wrong and even crashed even though Moscow contestants were allowed to test their drones on the same site before the checkpoint. I wish all contestants to learn the fourth checkpoint lessons and properly focus their efforts during the pre-final period,” said Alexey Yankelevich, Head of Robotics Practice, CROC.
The contest final will be held on August 24-25 for 12 contestants from Moscow and Moscow Region and 17 contestants from other regions, including Barnaul, Kazan, Krasnoyarsk, Tomsk, Rostov-on-Don, Saint Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Angarsk, Bryansk, Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, and even Vladivostok. The finalists will have to visit Moscow to compete for 1 million Ruble prize. The contest venue, schedule, and drone flights sequence will be announced later.
The list of finalists is available on the contest website.
About CROC
CROC is a leader in IT infrastructure design and implementation and the number one systems integration service provider in Russia (IDC reports, 2002-2012). CROC is among the top three consulting companies in Russia (Expert Rating Agency 2013), one of the five largest IT companies in the country (RIA Rating, Digit.ru 2013; Expert Rating Agency 2013; Kommersant Dengi 2013) and one of Russia’s Top 100 private companies (Forbes ranking of 200 Largest Private Companies in Russia, 2012).
For additional information please contact Natalia Voskresenskaya, PR Director, CROC at 974-2274, e-mail: NVoskresenskaya@croc.ru, pr@croc.ru).
