Every high school student assembles a drone. A report from a Kyiv school that teaches robotics

The drone is a tribute to the times

“The idea of drones is mine, because it is a necessary skill nowadays — to be able to assemble quadcopters, to be able to pilot them. Besides, it coincides with our technical program,” explains Pylyp Dukhlii, 44, director of the private engineering school #brobots.

We are in the center of the capital. There is a cozy courtyard between the Soviet building that houses the school and the earthen slope. There is a modern universal workshop in it, and that's where we are headed. On the way, Pylyp tells us:

“We engage children in learning through technology. This is what is called STEM. That is, when we give a project to children, and they assemble it on their own, not really understanding how it works at first.

Then we offer them to improve something. And then the students are fully involved in the process — they are interested in understanding how it works, what can be changed. They start experimenting. That's when the knowledge comes to them in a flash. And if you give them a dry theory, the child loses focus in 30 minutes.”

The principal of the #brobots school assures us that the students love the subject. “We bought 40 sets for all high school students to assemble one. We have a sponsor who has allocated 600 thousand hryvnias for this.”

We come to the workshop. Vitalii Voitsekhovskyi, an engineer teacher, shows us the way things are done here: the students have everything they need for designing, modeling, and soldering. There is a laser cutter and a 3D printer. On the shelves are the children's works: radio-controlled cars, skull models, plastic toy characters printed on a printer.

“We do everything we can to get children interested, to get them down to the workshop and work on projects. Currently, it's drones. Why drones? It's a tribute to the times: there's a place to take them and a place for children to go,” Vitalii says, holding a small drone in his hands.

Often in schools, they show some diagrams on the board, and students don't understand why they need a three-phase motor. It is better to go behind the garages to smoke and drink beer. In our classroom, theoretical and practical parts go hand in hand. It's exciting: you study something, assemble it, and then it flies. And the children have a reaction: “wow, I want more!”Vitalii Voitsekhovskyi, engineer teacher at #brobots

When the principal had the idea of having students assemble drones, and money was found for this, Vitalii was tasked with buying the components. He first consulted with the military, as they knew the specifics of this equipment best:

“I talked to the guys from the frontline — what they needed, what characteristics they were interested in. And I started from there. I took the details to make the finished drone as usable as possible.”

The UAVs made by the students of the #brobots school can lift up to two kilograms, cover at least five kilometers, and stay in the air for more than twenty minutes. They are also trained to protect the pilots: first, the “bird” flies away and then takes off from this place at a distance.

Drones are assembled by students starting in the eighth grade. A basic model can be assembled and soldered in 3-4 hours. But to learn how to fly it, you have to practice on a simulator for several months. Then the young pilots train on real drones: first, they practice in the gym, where they put up obstacles; then in the yard, but taking off no higher than the second floor.

Today, ninth-grader Artur tries to fly his FPV drone for the first time in the gym. The boy puts on special glasses. The quadcopter twitches, flips from side to side, but gradually takes off — the boy is happy with his success and enthusiastically tells me about his passion for flying.

I trained on the simulator for a whole year — without it, I would not have been able to take off at all. I had a DJI drone at home. It's much easier to use, and I used to shoot mountains on my own. When the full-scale invasion began, I gave it to the military. I really like drones — I went to this school for them. It's cool that you can assemble them right at school.Artur, student of #brobots school

We want our students to do what they love

The name #brobots has two components: “Brovary” + “robots”.

The path to creating the school was long. Previously, Pylyp Dukhlii had an advertising agency that produced a magazine for airlines, the one that passengers read on airplanes. Then he worked as a freelancer: he did his own turnkey printing projects, both in Ukraine and abroad.

However, the freelance routine quickly bored resourceful and cheerful Pylyp: “I started looking for a place in Brovary to teach programming to children. My first degree was in engineering,” the man recalls, and then admits: “I have never seen my father. I grew up at a ‘young technicians' station’, where I learned everything. I wanted to give children what I didn't have.”

So Pylyp created a robotics studio, and later, together with a friend, he opened 15 more such studios throughout Ukraine.

“People came to us because we did not focus on profits. And even now I don't think about money. For me, it's a tool for realizing ideas, dreams, and fantasies, not a way to make money or build a business. To put it simply: we put our hearts and souls into it,” the director assures.

The man recalls that he quickly developed a trusting relationship with the children: “A few kids came who were always hanging out with us in Brovary in these clubs. We celebrated the New Year with them and went to the sea. I realized later that these were children who had problems with their fathers. They either died or divorced their mother.”

One of the high school students said: “I was at a celebration at a public school on September 1, and I realized I didn't want to waste my time on that. You have a lot of interesting things here, so we want to learn, do our own projects, and fulfil ourselves.” A year later, we opened a school and took them here. At that time, we had 23 children, seven of whom were from Brovary.”Pylyp Dukhlii, director of the #brobots school

I ask Pylyp where these first graduates are, whose dream he and his colleagues managed to make come true.

“The graduates are already in Europe. It's a pity, of course, that they left, but they need to grow. If we were a university, we would have already developed research activities, startups, and something else interesting for them.”

We used to be accused of this: “You are teaching children so that they can go abroad, because nobody needs them here with their knowledge. Why are you doing it?”. And we are sure that it is better to teach them so that they can go, than not to teach them and they will have no knowledge and values. We want to turn all our students into self-sufficient, effective people who earn their living and do what they love.Pylyp Dukhlii, director of the #brobots school

A playboy rabbit in the principal's office and a moonshine still in chemistry class

Pylyp brings us to his office, which the principal shares with the head teacher. There are 80 students at the school now, and they attend classes full time. I ask him if he knows all of them, if he can have a friendly conversation with all of them. He answers: “Yes — it's amazing! We don't attack, we don't shame, we don't blame. And they talk. We talk like adults: you have a problem, so let's solve it together!”

We are actively involved in the psychological state of schoolchildren. My position is this: if a child is not learning, not striving, it means that he or she has some psychological problems, and we need to figure it out. When we invite such a child for a conversation, we always ask them first: “How can we help you?”Pylyp Dukhlii, director of the #brobots school

I look up to see a neon sign glowing from the ceiling — a pink playboy rabbit, the symbol of the magazine of the same name. I laugh: such a bold thing in the school principal's office... “The kids made it,” Pylyp responds, “We also have a neon sign for the Blue Oyster bar.”

Before the New Year, children paint the windows with colored sprays. They depict a phallus and then add wings as if they were butterflies. Or they make a crocodile out of a penis and call it “crocodildo”. And then you walk down the corridor and you don't see butterflies anymore, you see...Pylyp Dukhlii, director of the #brobots school

We laugh and go to lunch. In the corridor, on one of the walls are portraits of Ukrainian hetmans. There are QR codes under the portraits so that you can immediately read about these figures. It was a gift from one of the parents. We come to the dining room, which is in the basement, so it also serves as a shelter.

“We don't let the children leave school during an air raid alert, even if school is over. We've already had scandals with parents over this,” says the principal, ordering lunch.

The lunch menu is the same for everyone: a choice of two first courses and two second courses, and a compote for the third one. Everyone eats together: teachers, students of different classes, and we sit down. I take borsch, stewed potatoes with cabbage salad, and a cutlet. Most students choose dumplings.

“We don't assign homework because we realized that it doesn't work,” continues Pylyp. “We have a lot of technical subjects: programming, robotics, 3D modeling, electronics, design, computer drawing.

In general, we have interesting things going on: in chemistry class, students make soap and something explodes, but no one gets hurt.

Recently, the eighth grade built a moonshine still. They distilled brandy. Then they were dealt with,” the man hides a smile in his beard.

I ask the teachers if they have tried the strong drink. They burst out laughing, but shake their heads in denial. Pylyp turns to them and says with feigned seriousness: “How did you know it was brandy?” They answer: “A chemistry teacher did an analysis”.

Once again, I notice how warm and relaxed the atmosphere is here, how easy the relationships between everyone are. I realize that #brobots is not just about engineering, but also about this.

Brothers burned alive in a bus

Shortly before the full-scale invasion, the school principal studied psychology and began practicing. And then the great war came. The man went to war.

“Me and the army are incompatible. I have avoided the army all my life because you have no say in the matter, because the commander is always right. But then I went to the front, and I had to accept many things,” admits Pylyp, speaking about February 2022. Then he took his family and two children to western Ukraine, and went to the Territorial Recruitment Center thinking: if not me, then who?

“We were taught little, in a hurry, there were not enough instructors for everyone. They wanted to send us to the front as soon as possible. And they did. To the east. It turned out to be a good experience: each place we stayed was worse than the last. Until we got to Avdiivka.”

The soldiers were being transported in a regular bus. Then Pylyp came under mortar fire. The attack was unexpected for everyone.

By that time, none of us had any combat experience. We hadn't even been given helmets or body armor. Only assault rifles. Someone jumped out of the bus, like me, because I was sitting in front. We fell to the ground and covered our heads with our hands. Someone behind was breaking windows, jumping out, and those who didn't make it stayed inside. They were burning there, screaming. We could hear it.Pylyp Dukhlii, director of the #brobots school

The man tilts his head and rubs the back of his head with his hand to cope with his emotions. “One man's leg was blown off, so we put a tourniquet on it. We broke down a door somewhere and carried him to the nearest place where there were doctors. A doctor came out and checked his pulse: he is dead, leave him here.”

Later, passing by a burnt-out bus, the soldier saw the bones of the guys who were traveling with him. The unit lost a third of its men there. Some were wounded, some died.

Pylyp Dukhlii, with the call sign Director, was establishing communication between the positions. He had to either lay the line or repair it.

“Being on the front line between Avdiivka and Donetsk is not very pleasant, let's just say. It is scary. Death is always around. I counted four ‘new birthdays’. And that's the ones I know about. Once, in half an hour, we were hit 46 times with precision missiles — the Russians used mines with a top detonation. This is when a mine explodes above a person and seven thousand darts dig into his body, making jelly out of him. But the mines did not indicate the time of detonation, so they hit near us without exploding. We were lucky,” says the veteran director.

After four months of service, his heart gave out, and he was taken for treatment:

Medical company was based in a village club. The very first night we were hit by a missile. Someone told the Russians about us — the hit was precise. I woke up to a wall falling on me. It was good that I was lying on my side, it fell on my shoulder. This wall saved me from the debris falling from the ceiling. There were guys there whom they covered. I saw brains and intestines...Pylyp Dukhlii, director of the #brobots school

The man could not get out from under the rubble on his own — he did not know how much weight was on top of him, whether he would be crushed even more. Suddenly he saw fire.

“And then, for the first time, I became scared. Not of dying, but that death would be so painful. I heard voices and started screaming. But they did not hear me. I thought: if they don't pull me out now, it's over. I was screaming, and our ammunition was already exploding nearby, rounds were flying — then suddenly, at the last second, the guys came running, lifted this wall and pulled me out. These five minutes seemed to me the longest in my life.”

After his hospitalization, Pylyp resigned from the service for family reasons.

School of the future

After this amazing story, I return to my questions about the school. Was it the way Pylyp envisioned it, and did he manage to implement all his plans?

“It is less. We follow the children. We have a cool way: first, we look at what is interesting to children, what works for them. And then we implement it fully. We are constantly experimenting,” says the former military man.

He shows me the drawings of the new school. It will be near Kyiv, and the land has already been purchased. The only thing left to do is to find 15 million dollars... What will this considerable sum be spent on?

“The school will have accommodation for children and teachers. I often receive letters from other cities, but people are not ready to move. And we are not ready to open a franchise or branches, because it will be other teachers, another director. I won't be able to control them and tell them what they have to do to be like us. It will be a different school. And this is a human business.”

Schools teach math, physics, and chemistry, but they do nothing to help children start an independent life. They are not taught how to cook or what proper nutrition is; they are not shown how to hold a drill or a perforator; how to change a faucet. They are not given the basics of psychological self-education, knowledge about their emotions: shame, guilt. And this is important because emotions are the key to understanding our needs. If I don't understand my own needs, I will satisfy other people's needs, and therefore I will be unhappy. We will teach this as well.”Pylyp Dukhlii, director of the #brobots school

The principal is convinced that the Scandinavian approach to secondary education will help children realize that they are part of a society, a home, a city, a country: “I want to foster this sense of belonging in children, so that they know they are not alone in this world.”

The air raid alarm sounds, and we go down to the shelter with the children. It immediately becomes noisy there. The students are playing, drinking compote, pushing and laughing. I had already been here for lunch, but only now I notice large portraits of Steve Jobs on the walls.

After making sure that the students are okay, Pylyp and I go upstairs to talk. All the while, an alarm siren is sounding incessantly.

“I want to open a theater in the school where we are now. The functional part is that children need to have experience of performing in front of an audience, to have a developed voice. And the psychological part is that we will assign children roles that are therapeutically important for them. For example, we will give a bully the role of a defender of the weak.”

There is an opinion that surgeons and dentists are people with pronounced sadistic tendencies. It's just that they didn't become murderers, but rather dig into the blood of patients — they cut, they enjoy it, but for the benefit of society. So it is possible to put such a psyche in the right direction now. But a child who, on the contrary, has suppressed the sadistic part can be given the role of a thief. So that he or she can get acquainted with this component of human nature.Pylyp Dukhlii, director of the #brobots school

“Our students will leave school having learned about themselves,” says Pylyp, adding with a laugh, “And they won't spend money on a therapist.”

Finally, I ask the principal about his personal life: what this teaching job means to him.

“This is an opportunity to leave something behind. We all have a fear of death that we successfully disguise and try to ignore. This is a fear that is difficult to face. And one of the ways to overcome it is to choose the path of heroism.

A hero is someone who leaves behind some kind of memory. It can be children, some outstanding achievements, deeds. My heroism is to take care of children, to leave all of myself in them.”