The CROC Flying Drone Contest

CROC is running a Flying Drone Contest which requires contestants to demonstrate an unmanned autonomous flying drone (copter) which must successfully complete contest tasks. The first prize is 1 million Rubles**. Contest milestones are in January, March, May and June 2013; the finals will be held in August 2013.

Applications were closed on November 15, 2012. Registered contestants include aircraft software developers, students and graduates of specialized technical universities, employees of design bureaus and research institutes and other enthusiasts.

Contestants must develop software for drones while the drone itself can be either factory-manufactured or self-made. The drone has to be able to take-off from a starting point, overcome an obstacle, fly to and land on a landing point and then take-off again and return to the starting point. A detailed site plan can be found on the contest website at http://www.robots.croc.ru/about/.

“We are very excited about the contest: there are so many talented and technically smart people who are keen to participate. We have received over 500 applications from 295 teams and 241 individual participants. The word about the contest is spreading both online and offline and we are receiving a lot of questions. I wish good luck to all contestants!” said Aleksey Dobrovolskiy, Software Development Director, CROC.

** The Prize is paid after personal income tax deduction subject to Articles 224 and 226 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation. The tax deduction is 13% for tax residents or 30% for non-residents of the Russian Federation.