From March 1 to 31, ENSTA Bretagne in partnership with The Corner and the Thales Design Center, is organizing a Defense Hackathon to address the problems of the Lorient "fusiliers marins" (navy riflemen) and commandos (FUSCO). The event brings together ENSTA Bretagne students and Thales and Naval Group employees.
Twenty-eight ENSTA Bretagne students associated with 6 Thales employees and 7 Naval Group employees met virtually for 4 weeks in order to imagine tools able to address 4 problems encountered by the "force maritime des fusiliers marins et commandos" (Forfusco), based in Lorient.
Each team, comprising 4 students and 2 employees, provided a fresh perspective and solutions relevant to the needs identified by the force:
- Tool for collecting stealth deficiencies, the purpose of which is to collect raft data during training to enable commandos to improve their stealth.
- FORFUSCO's tool for managing and monitoring innovation topics: this project management, task tracking and reporting tool aims to improve the monitoring of innovative subjects handled by Fuscol@b
- Mortar firing operational calculation tool: this is a system that facilitates the making of the settings required when using a mortar in an emergency situation
- Automatic mine, ammunition or weapon recognition tool: based on the phone camera's "facial recognition" principle, its purpose is to allow detected objects to be identified and characterized easily.
The teams hold a video-conference meeting on Wednesday mornings. Each team is supervised by a coach (ENSTA Bretagne, The Corner, Thales Design Center and Village by CA) who assists them through the project's major phases and contributes their knowledge.
Each week, a new angle is discussed:
- Week 1/ Brainstorming, understanding the problem
- Week 2/ Sorting out ideas, thinking about user profiles
- Week 3/ Prototyping (models)
- Week 4/ Presentation of the work done in the form of a pitch
Antonin Raffarin, head of the ENSTARTUPS incubator and co-organizer of the event said:
At the end of the 4 weeks, the goal is not to develop a complete digital solution but to provide overall insight into the subject, to imagine user profiles and to propose interface models.
The student and professional profiles complement each other. For the students, it represents an initial experience of entrepreneurship as well as a new approach to a technical project. For professionals, it represents an opportunity to open up to new fields, to participate in an innovative experience and to identify possible future employees.
This first edition was considered as a success. The participants as well as the Forfusco appreciated the originality of this event and the meaningfulness of the contributions provided by each team.
