We buzzed heartily!

Maxim LESKOV is 47 years old, an analyst by profession, he got interested in piloting drones. As the track shows, age is not the main criterion for identifying an ace pilot. Drones circle in a grid-pen, people control them from the outside: you need to guide your drone through all the nooks and crannies, go around obstacles. There are competitions for mini-drones and larger machines, there are also those that are controlled not by a person, but by a written program. An interesting stage is a drone flight in virtual reality.

Evgeniya, the mother of young pilot Damir URAZALIN, says that since her son became interested in piloting drones, the family car has covered a decent number of kilometers in search of free skies. There are a lot of restrictions for these technobirds. But what views open up to the pilot! They say that controlling a drone, especially if it flies in hard-to-reach places, is also not easy - your head spins when you're not used to it.

During the Almaty Tech Cup 2025 festival, the hangar of the exhibition complex at Atakent is buzzing like a beehive. It is not surprising that in this atmosphere you want to create and do things - there is a cheerful bustle at the stands with projects, funny presentations. The audience and judges must be able to surprise not only with the idea, but also with the presentation. Therefore, fairy-tale characters and fashionable trends of social networks are in vogue.

The youngest participants (4 years and older) present their creations assembled from Lego parts to the guests - bright, colorful, but with cool eco-ideas. The teams are assisted by parents and mentors. The older children have more serious projects. And they need to be prepared - from the idea to the details - from scratch. The oldest group's robots must already perform assigned tasks and even enter the battle. For the safety of the participants - suddenly a machine uprising occurs - each robot has a special button, the troublemaker will be immediately knocked out. But the organizers do not recall such a case.

All projects are united by an important theme - this time saving the World Ocean and local water bodies. It has already been tested at regional championships throughout the country. And today the best are here.

Participants from Taldykorgan, for example, created a robot octopus. It dances amusingly on its tentacles and helps to explore the depths of the sea. The silver bathyscaphe “Kryl-bot” from the team from Kazygurt will help ocean inhabitants to escape from space pollution, when animals get tangled in nets and bags, suffer from plastic and harmful chemicals. Aktau schoolchildren also brought a rescue robot, but for people.

And a team from the Shardara district of the Turkestan region is introducing an underwater shepherd - it will monitor schools of fish raised by humans and released into the Caspian Sea. They even came up with a way to protect against poachers: the robot - the fish shepherd will spot the villains and immediately drive the fish schools away. This is a drone, and it will be controlled by a person or artificial intelligence.

More than 400 participating teams from Kazakhstan, as well as from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Mongolia, Turkey and India brought their projects, engineering developments, robots and high-speed drones. More than 100 types of competitions and engineering tests are held here. But the main battles here are not for prizes and attention - the selection of the best teams that will represent their countries at the world championship in the USA is underway. In addition to the Kazakh team, 27 more visiting teams have a chance to get to the world final in Houston.

The guys from Kazakhstan have received the coveted tickets to the First Championship, where about 50 thousand people usually participate, before. And they made an incredible breakthrough three times - they became champions of the world championship and already at home they promoted the passion for robotics among their peers. For example, the team that tore apart their rivals in Athens in 2024 returned to Kazakhstan with a passion for good deeds. The guys, having united with the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, were able to hold the championship in Uzbekistan themselves. They launched their educational magazine "Shabyttan". They took robotic kits to the village of Zhylandy, which is 700 kilometers from Almaty, and showed how to use them. And today, a team of Zhylandy schoolchildren arrived at the championship with their own development.

- We are seeing a new trend: if previously the winners of our competitions were students from NIS or other advanced schools from megacities, now they are diluted with teams from the regions and ordinary schools. Now local universities give our winners grants for education and more than 200 world universities finance the champions. We are resolving the issue with the Ministry of Education to exempt our champions from the UNT. The plans include attracting more technology and innovation companies so that the guys have employment prospects, - says the director of the public fund USTEM Foundation Asylbek MURZAKHMETOV.

As a result, several teams will go to Houston to represent Kazakhstan: the PID team from the Almaty NIS HBN, in the middle age category the RassLexx teams from the Karaganda region and SKILLSET from Astana, in the younger age category the Atlantis team from the Pavlodar region.

Yulia ZENG, photo by Vera OSTANKOVA, Almaty