INRTU Students Took Part in the New Year's Quest "Quantum Commotion"

Students majoring in natural sciences, IT, engineering, and business at Irkutsk National Research Technical University (INRTU) took on the New Year's quest “Quantum Commotion”. The event, organized by the university’s Development of Research and Entrepreneurial Activity of Students Office, featured seven competing teams.

The game's plot centered on a legend where New Year's magic ceased to function due to a failure in the "Quantum Holiday Generator". To save New Year, the teams had to reboot the generator by applying both scientific knowledge and entrepreneurial savvy.

The quest stations were set up at various university locations. Participants received campus maps with the stations marked. They had to complete seven stations located in the Boiling Point space (Igoshin and Golovnykh Halls), university classrooms, and common areas. At each station, a team earned a clue-key – a part of the access code (a digit or symbol) – and an item (e.g., a component for a schematic). In the final stage, after collecting all codes and items, the teams solved a final puzzle.

For instance, at the “Architects” station, participants had five minutes to build a 30-centimeter tall paper tower capable of supporting a small weight. Teams received a clue as a reward only if their paper tower could bear the load for at least 30 seconds.

At the “AI Server Room” checkpoint, quest participants helped the Linear Integrated Quantum Assistant, LIQA, to fine-tune a model by classifying New Year's-themed objects. Teams earned a clue for achieving at least 60% correct answers.

At the next stop, “The Crisis Manager Office of Father Frost”, participants distributed tasks, honing their management skills: the ability to match employees' existing skills with requirements, set priorities, and simply delegate duties.

Teams also visited the “Wizard-Geologist”, where they discovered geo-ducklings – mysterious stones: minerals, along with stone passports containing names and descriptions presented in a cryptic form. As a result, the players had to match the items with their names.

At the "Iskorka" (Spark) Design Bureau, the teams found themselves in a critical situation. The main gyroscope of the "Festive Course" navigation system in Father Frost's transport module had malfunctioned. Without it, he couldn't calculate the route accurately or make his deliveries on time. Using an emergency prototyping kit, the teams had to design and assemble a stabilizing element to replace the faulty one.

At the “Power Engineer's” station, teams had to arrange cubes with the names of power plants in the correct order without knowing what was written on each cube.

The “Chemist's” station tasked students with finding a component to create artificial snow. Intriguingly, this required some real chemistry work. The teams had to treat pieces of paper with an iodine solution to reveal letters written in invisible ink, and then assemble these letters to form a complete magic word.

A member of the winning team, Vyacheslav Byankin, shared his impressions:

“Our first New Year's quest was an absolute thrill! We tackled so many interesting stations to collect the clues we needed for the final password.

Thanks to the organizers for such an exciting event!”