TechnoBrain 2018: EggCopter X
Invitation to the Media
TechnoBrain 2018: EggCopter Returns to Technion After 20 Years
Who will successfully drop an egg from a height of 40 meters without it breaking?
This question will be answered on Wednesday at the Technion campus
On Wednesday afternoon, May 2, 2018, Technion will host the finals of the 2018 TechnoBrain competition, “EggCopter X 20.” First, second and third places will receive NIS 10,000, NIS 5,000, and NIS 3,000, respectively. The annual competition takes place in memory of the late Neev-Ya Durban, a Technion alumnus and an outstanding student, and it is sponsored by Doctor Robert Shillman (Doctor Bob) .
This year’s competition will be a tribute to the first TechnoBrain held in 1997, the EggCopter, when eggs were dropped from the roof of the tallest building at Technion. This time they will be released from a 40-meter-tall crane in the center of campus.
Fifteen teams have reached the final stage. The contestants were required to design and construct a device that will ascend to a height of 40 meters and then be released with eggs inside. The raw eggs must reach the ground intact, within the shortest amount of time possible, and come to rest within a certain distance from the center of a target marked on the ground.
The TechnoBrain competition was conceived 21 years ago by the late Neev-Ya Durban, then a student at Technion’s Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. Durban, who founded the competition out of a desire to challenge Technion students with creative engineering tasks, said at the time, “The competition was conceived in order to get students away from their textbooks and computer screens and give them an opportunity for creative expression while coping with complex problems in a fun atmosphere.” Durban took his inspiration from the Mars Pathfinder project, the first landing of a probe on Mars in the summer of 1997.
The writer Tamar Bornstein-Lazar, who read about the competition, wrote Kofiko at the EggCopter Competition, a book that later inspired an episode in Israel’s Kofiko TV series (season 2, episode 19).
Neev-Ya Durban enlisted in the IDF upon completing his undergraduate studies at Technion. During his military service, he began his graduate studies at Technion’s Faculty of Biomedical Engineering. Tragically, he was murdered in March 2003 near his home in Tel Aviv.
The competition is being organized by Marina Minkin, a graduate student at the Computer Science Department, with Prof. Irad Yavneh moderating the event. The judges are Prof. Alon Wolf, Prof. Alon Gany, Prof. Tanchum Weller, and Neev-Ya’s parents, Prof. David Durban and his wife Rachel.
The competition and prizes are sponsored by Doctor Robert Shillman (Doctor Bob), who graduated from Technion and then completed his PhD at MIT.
The competition will take place on Wednesday, May 2, 2018, from 12:30 to 14:30, on the boardwalk opposite the central lawn at Technion.
Reporters and photographers are welcome.