This engineering festival of science, technology and high tech was held in Dnipro for the fourth time. The event took place at the Lavina amusement park during the weekend on 19-20 October.

National scientific and technological enterprises and educational institutions presented their state-of-the-art achievements and entertained the audience with various activities and presentations. The goal was to draw attention of Ukrainian young generation to the engineering, science and industry, interest the youth in the exact and natural sciences, and encourage young people to choose their occupation sensibly.

This year, Interpipe TechFest had 10 exhibition zones, including a unique space development zone – the Space Center. As always, the exposition of Yuzhnoye was the largest and most interactive.

There were quests, virtual journey on the Moon surface, quizzes, prizes, site for taking pictures with astronauts, and many other entertainments for children and adults. Engineers and designers of Yuzhnoye talked about serious matters in a clear and friendly manner so that the guests did not doubt that it would be honorable and very interesting to participate in high-tech production.

The youngest guests were paid special attention at the festival. At Yuzhnoye’s exposition stand, children had an opportunity to build and launch their own rockets, draw space sketches with a 3D pen or get a piece of memorable body-art. In the meantime, their parents could watch exciting videos on tests with and launches of rockets, look at Yuzhnoye’s supercomputer and see pictures from the spacecraft assembly and electrical test shop, listen to young specialists talking about the activities of the leading company of Ukrainian space industry.

There was a special event for students: they had an opportunity to become the engineers of Yuzhnoye. Certainly, it was just a play, but they could get two education certificates and an employment records book that were, of course, imitated, but stirred up positive emotions.  To get an employment records book, each participant had to accomplish special tasks on the territory of the Rocket-and-Space Engineering College of Oles Honchar Dnipro National University.

A public lecture of Olexandr Baldin, Head of the Council of Young Specialists, became a notable part of the festival program. The talk about  the latest developments of Yuzhnoye, particularly the Cyclone-4M launch vehicle, a Lunar research base, a geostationary platform for medium class satellites, and an orbital service spacecraft aroused a keen interest of the audience on the lecture ground.

We have an overall impression that the festival was held at the appropriate level and hopefully more young people will choose the engineering, science, industry, and space technology for their profession.