Andrey Zazykin with the cup and diplomas of the Fortuna winners
On 22 May, the V International Children's Automobile Forum (DAF-2026) was held as part of the business program of the VII International Transport Festival "TransportFest-2026" in St Petersburg. The forum was dedicated to the development of the automotive industry and the training of engineering personnel.
The forum was organized by the Avtoprom North-West Union and the St Petersburg regional branch of the Union of Mechanical Engineers of Russia (OOO SoyuzMash Rossii). The event was supported by the Association of Russian Automobile Manufacturers, the Association of Automotive Engineers, the Trade Union of Automobile and Agricultural Machinery Workers of Russia, the National Association of Automotive Component Suppliers, and OOO Avtozavod Saint Petersburg.
The scientific and educational session included the finals of the career guidance project "Fortuna" and the competition "RoboLab: Transport Robotics Projects." Participants presented their developments in the fields of vehicles, special-purpose machines, and robotics solutions to the expert committee.
The session was moderated by Maya Sviridova, a member of the regional council of the St Petersburg branch of the Union of Machine Building of Russia. The expert committee included Andrey Zazykin, Dean of the SPbGASU Faculty of Automobile and Road Building, as well as representatives of automobile assembly plants, engineering centers, industry associations, and educational organizations.
Presentation by Andrey Zazykin
According to the results of the "Fortuna" competition, the SPbGASU team, consisting of fourth-year students of the Faculty of Automobile and Road Building Leonid Bortkevich, Viktoria Yatygina, Nikita Gladkov (major in Applied Mechanics), Dmitry Ein (major in Operation of Transport and Technological Machines and Complexes) and first-year master's student Daniil Parfeni (major in Applied Mechanics), together with the A.L. Stieglitz St Petersburg State Academy of Art and Industry, took second place with the project "AMR-Next: Intelligent Autonomous Platform for Industrial Logistics of Automobile Plants". The project is dedicated to the development of an intelligent transport platform for the automation of production processes at enterprises of the automotive industry.
Presentation of the project by SPbGASU and the Academy named after A. L. Stieglitz
First place went to the joint team of the Zh. Ya. Kotin Academy of Mechanical Engineering and the A.L. Stieglitz Academy with the project "MT-809MK Electric Machine." Third place was awarded to the team from the Okhta Children's (Youth) Technical Creativity Center in the Krasnogvardeisky District of St Petersburg for their project "Trudovichok – Assistant to the Universal Service Manager."
The forum continued at the Cinema House with a cooperation session dedicated to the collaboration between educational institutions and employers in the automotive industry in training personnel and implementing joint scientific and technical projects. Participants discussed successful practices of student design bureaus and promising areas of collaboration.
