Prestigious Italian Award “Compasso d'Oro” to two Faculty of Design Alumni

A proud moment for Holon Institute of Technology (HIT) and its Faculty of Design. Two recent graduates from the Faculty, Michal Leszczynski and Or Lev-Cohen, won the Italian Industrial Design Association’s most prestigious award, the 2020 “Compasso d'Oro” in Milan this month.

This is only the second time in the history of this award that the Award was presented to candidates outside of Italy.

The two received the award for their design of the Bird Repelling Drone Operation (BRDO) - a drone meant to repel birds flying into aerial navigation paths at airports. The project was designed in the Autonomous Tools course offered in the Industrial Design program at the beginning of their third-year of studies, under the supervision of Adi Ketari and Gili Kochik.

For many years, bird-related incidents have headlined the news and quite a few cases of near-aviation disaster have occurred. Despite the seriousness of the problem, however, the solutions employed to date have not always been able to resolve the problems for a variety of reasons.

The system designed by the HIT students is called BRDO (Bird Repelling Drone Operation) and consists of two autonomous tools: A drone in the shape of a bird of preysupported by a second dog-shaped instrument which controls the drone from the ground.
It is a known fact that in the wild, birds of preyand trained dogs are considered natural enemies of birds, so they will always be careful to avoid them.

In order to ensure that the birds perceived the drone as a ‘threat’ and therefore would keep their distance, the students modeled the design on the three main elements which were common tobirds of prey: a short neck, long tail and wide wingspan.

With the help of special electronic components, a typical aviation form was added. The ‘dog’ was inspired by Spot, Boston Robotic's famous dog robot.

The award ceremony took place in Italy and the participation of the two students was made possible through the assistance of HIT and the Italian Embassy.