Between 27 and 30 October, the finals of the 10th Student Tournament of Three Sciences took place at Voronezh State University. Among the participants of this stage were teams from St. Petersburg, Moscow, Obninsk, Yekaterinburg, Penza, Veliky Novgorod, Voronezh, Volgograd, Chelyabinsk, Ufa, Tyumen, Orenburg, Bashkortostan, and Tomsk. The qualifying stage included 22 teams and only 12 of them made it to the final.
The Tournament of Three Sciences is a student competition the goal of which is to create a platform for interactions between talented students and the business community. Participants present their solutions during a scientific battle where they take turns to act as a speaker, an opponent, or a reviewer. Young scientists practice their theoretical knowledge in an unusual way. The expert jury which includes university lecturers from all over Russia, representatives of partner companies, and former participants of the tournament watch the battle. The draw, according to which the teams were divided into sections, took place at the Atomic Energy Information Centre. The students had to answer the questions from the Brainshaker intellectual game and thus discovered who they would compete with.
“The experience was unforgettable and we permanently suffered from a lack of sleep. I would really like to see more strong teams, beautiful solutions, but even experienced teams failed to find enough time to prepare for the tournament as well as they did in previous years, which, of course, affected the game. We had been preparing for the final since July, trying to find solutions that could surprise others and to some extent we succeeded. This year, the organisation of the event was even better, the organisers tried to consider the interests and needs of all participants and this was a big plus. For us, students from a regional university, the tournament is one of the few incentives to grow in science. It would be cool if there were more tasks and challenges related to current issues. According to my experience, I’ve noticed that a good problem case from a scientific tournament can look good on your CV. It would be cool if the tasks took into account more what is in demand on the market today,” said Pavel Shestun, a participant of the tournament.
The final stage of the10th Tournament of Three Sciences had a very eventful programme: the students not only had a chance to compete for the first place, but also to communicate with representatives of partner companies, to attend informal events, and meet new people. Scientific practicability is not the only valuable thing about the Tournament of Three Sciences: it also helps students to develop soft skills, such as teamwork, rhetorical skills, negotiating skills, and working with text editing programmes. It also provides a chance to find friends and like-minded people from other cities of Russia and other countries.
“The Tournament of Three Sciences is the first large-scale student competition in which I’ve taken part. I joined the team at the eleventh hour: the team urgently needed a biologist to solve problems that require a more in-depth knowledge in this area. And thanks to word of mouth, I soon found myself up to my ears solving problems. First of all, the tournament provided me with an invaluable experience of participating in live scientific discussions and, of course, with a lot of new knowledge. Preservation of DNA in bones, modification of cell lines, treatment of dementia, and enzyme stabilisation, each task was really challenging but incredibly exciting. And sleepless nights in the company of textbooks on medicine, pharmacology, and biochemistry, of course, were an integral part of the experience. We had heated and vibrant scientific discussions. I had a chance to be both a speaker and a reviewer. To moderate a heated discussion can be a difficult task at times, especially in the final battle! However, we survived and managed to solve the problems,” said a participant from the winning team “Just Smile and Toil away” (Ulybaemsya i Pashem).
In addition, this year the programme of the event included an exclusive show “Loud Tournament”, during which the participants had a chance to have fun and check how well they could understand each other without words and find a common solution to the problem by communicating non-verbally.
The Tournament of Three Sciences is organised by the ANO Laboratory for Educational Projects and supported by Voronezh State University. In 2023, the event was supported by Rosmolodezh. The partners of the event are Rusagro, Health&Nutrition (ex. Danon), and OOO Mabscale.
Photo: Tournament of Three Sciences
