Published on: 2026-07-01
Source: Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University –
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The annual Summer School took place at Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University. The 10-day educational intensive brought together 130 high school students from grades 9 to 11, who worked on real engineering and research projects for two weeks under the guidance of university professors and industry experts.
This year, the school participants worked in five directions, co-organized by the institutes of SPbPU.
The direction “Aviation: Aerodynamics and Strength” was organized by the Institute of Energy. Classes with schoolchildren were conducted by an engineer from the student design bureau “System Engineering,” postgraduate student of the Higher School of Energy Machine Building Andrey Shirokikh, and master’s student Nikita Izbyakov. Under their guidance, participants modeled aircraft wings, calculated their strength and aerodynamics, manufactured prototypes, and tested them in the laboratory.
“Mechanical Engineering 3.0: Additive Technologies and Prototyping” took place at the Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Materials and Transport. The responsible instructor was Alexander Tupikov, assistant at the Higher School of Mechanical Engineering. The classes were also conducted by fourth-year students of IMMiT, Pavel Cherkudinov and Arkady Andreev. The students mastered the full cycle of product creation: from 3D modeling in KOMPAS-3D to printing and assembly of the mechanism.
“City Code” was organized by the Institute of Industrial Management, Economics, and Trade with the support of the Committee for Transport of Saint Petersburg. The direction was led by the Deputy Director of IPMET for Prospective Projects and Youth Policy, Maxim Ivanov. The organization and execution also involved Darya Shevchuk, a second-category specialist in educational and methodological work at IPMET. Within the “City Code” track, participants worked on real challenges related to the development of Saint Petersburg’s urban environment. The introductory lecture was delivered by Denis Minkin, Chairman of the Committee for Transport of Saint Petersburg, who spoke to the students about choosing a professional path, personal responsibility for decisions made, prospects for the development of modern industries, and the role of transportation in the future of digital cities. The program was interdisciplinary in nature: the participants studied basics of marketing, lean manufacturing, economic analysis, data analytics, state and municipal management, and also became acquainted with modern digital technologies and approaches to urban environment development.Under the guidance of university experts and the specialized committee, participants analyzed the transport infrastructure and digital services of Saint Petersburg and developed their own projects. The outcome of the work consisted of concepts for new transport routes, projects for implementing modern technologies in urban transport, as well as ideas to promote public transport and develop the “Podorozhnik” card. Representatives of the Transport Committee highly appreciated the participants’ projects and noted the possibility of practical application of the best ideas.
The track “From Words to Numbers: Automatic Analysis of Text Complexity” was conducted by the Humanities Institute. The responsible instructor for the program was Elena Krupnova, assistant and postgraduate student at the Higher School of Linguistics and Pedagogy. Associate professors Marina Kogan and Alexander Dmitriev from the same higher school also participated in the classes. The school students compiled linguistic corpora of literary texts in English, learned to perform their automatic analysis in Python, and worked with readability metrics.
“Energovibe: how to tame electric current and not burn out” was implemented by the Institute of Energy with the participation of PJSC Lenenergo. The students were taught by senior lecturer of the Higher School of Electric Power Systems Maria Lyulina. The participants designed the power supply system of a cottage, calculated the loads, and tested the solutions in digital modeling.
Each direction involved solving a practical case from institutes and industrial partners: from designing an airplane wing in KOMPAS-3D and calculations in ANSYS to developing power supply systems and analyzing urban data.
In addition to working on projects, participants visited high-tech enterprises such as JSC “Nevsky Zavod”, “Silovye Mashiny”, Volkhov Hydroelectric Power Station, the Combined Tram and Trolleybus Depot “Gorelectrotrans”, the innovative tram depot “Chizhik”, the Center for the History of Leningrad’s Motor Transport, as well as laboratories at the Polytechnic and the Pushkin House. To develop soft skills, master classes were organized on presentation design, working with neural networks, public speaking, stress resistance, and project packaging.
The Polytechnic Summer School is an opportunity for schoolchildren not just to get acquainted with the university, but to experience a full engineering journey: from formulating a problem to defending their own solution. We see how young people’s interest in technical fields grows, and projects like these help them make a conscious step into the profession. I am confident that many participants will return to Polytechnic as students within a year,
The conclusion of the shift was the defense of projects, where each team presented the results of their work. All participants received personalized certificates, and the winners and prize-winners of the project competition received additional points when applying to SPbPU.
I thank Polytech for the opportunity to jointly create conditions for the development of talented young people. I wish the participants to maintain this attitude, not to stop at what has been achieved, to be first everywhere and in everything, — shared Vladimir Kulichkin, Chairman of the Council of the Saint Petersburg regional branch of the all-Russian public-state movement for children and youth “Movement of the First”.
The project is being implemented with grant support from the Movement of the First.
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