School of Technology students were the only Brazilians in the event in France
School of Technology students Talles Feijó (Electrical Engineering), Jonathan Culau and Guilherme Rocha (Control and Automation Engineering) made it to the finals of ActinSpace, in Toulouse (France), on Jun 27. They were the only Brazilians in the finals and secured their spot after winning the national leg, in May, at Global Tecnopuc.
The students’ project is a low cost solution consisting of stratospheric balloons for monitoring crops in order to reduce the damages caused by plagues there. The business model designed by the RTC Control team would be financially accessible to family farmers and would bring more stability to them and to the productive chain.
Despite a flawless presentation, in which they answered all questions asked by the panel members with authority and competence, the top spot was grabbed by Australia, with a temper-proof registration and identification system for drone operators. “The important part of it all is that we learned a lot and it has been such a beautiful experience. The team was stronger since its project is at the same level as that of the other competitors. They will be back next week to roll up their sleeves to work on the project at Tecnopuc Startup”, comments Business School professor Dr Vicente Zanella, who was with students until the finals.
ActinSpace is the only event all over the world to give participants the chance to work with patents of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Space for Space Studies (CNES). PUCRS was the only Brazilian university to be home to the national leg. 72 other cities in 34 countries all over the planet have been home to it too.
