UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 29, 2015. A school student from Krasnoyarsk was awarded Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s special prize within the framework of the national science and design project school contest, the corporation’s press service reports.

The awarding ceremony took place at one of the State Duma’s assembly halls. Yuri Pavlov, an eighth-grader from Krasnoyarsk, won in the Cozy World category, where contestants presented inventions that help to make this world a more comfortable place. Yuri presented his Hovercraft Rescue Robot.

His proposal is to introduce remotely controlled rescue robots to all of the Emergency Ministry’s special vehicles. Once at the shore of a lake or a pond, the vehicle crew launches the robot, that is, a high-speed drone. The drowning person can thus keep afloat by holding onto the body of the robot. The rescue crew will be able to communicate to them through the in-built microphone and speakers so that the person in the water can be instructed how to buckle themselves onto the robot with special belts. A reliable pull rope attached to the robot on one end and to the hoisting device on the other will be used to quickly tow the drowning person onto the shore. This will reduce the risk of drowning for the rescuers themselves, since people will be evacuated from water by robots and not human beings.

The prize was given to the winner by Daryana Murinovitch, Uralvagonzavod Corporation’s special representative in the Duma.

‘I’m positive every schoolboy is dying to get a present like that: a toy Tank 90, which both Russia and Uralvagonzavod take pride in,’ she said.