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A lifetime of Science

In 2017, École Polytechnique students once again demonstrated their talent, making novel scientific advances that will transform the world of tomorrow, participating in national and international competitions, and developing their ideas of disruptive technologies. These students are the future Nobel Prize winners, tomorrow’s major corporate leaders, and new innovators.

In the meantime, they are pursuing their education in the many different programs of studies at l’X. There are those in the Bachelor degree program launched last year; others, in the Ingénieur Polytechnicien program, or in one of the 40 Master’s and seven Graduate Degree programs; others in the doctoral program. What all these students have in common is an eagerness to foster progress in our societies by meeting the challenges of today and tomorrow.

In the course of their education, they further their knowledge in scientific disciplines and apply it in experimental frameworks with researchers from the 22 laboratories of École Polytechnique. They also take human science courses, a tradition inherited from the humanist vocation that has informed l’X for 200 years in its effort to forge leaders motivated by public interest. Thus, they create bridges between disciplines and develop their inventiveness.

In addition, students also learn teamwork through the many group projects. Those with ideas for start‑ups benefit from structures to concretize their projects: the incubator, the accelerator and the fab lab. Sports is part of their education as well, and the institution organizes numerous competitions that provide the students with a forum to exhibit their prowess. Finally, they have the opportunity to practice different languages through contacts on campus with the many international students –representing, in fact, 70 nationalites– and to reveal their creativity by joining any of the 200 student associations that corresponds to their aspirations. Students at École polytechnique are readying themselves here and now for their future careers. The programs, designed to meet current business and research needs, prepare them to become experts in all areas of strong growth, such as nanoscience, bio-engineering, big data, artificial intelligence, environmental technologies, cybersecurity, and the internet of things.

It is this diversity that we hoped to illustrate with this publication, through all the programs at l’X and those who embody them: i.e. the students. We invite you to discover these pioneers and the projects they realized in the year 2017 in their studies, sports activities, or participation in associations. More than ever, École Polytechnique continues to evolve at a rapid pace to better prepare its students and thus make possible the scientific, technological and industrial revolutions of the 21st century.

Discover projectsarrow_right_alt

Produce complex molecules faster

The secret of the velocity of the particles

A MOOC to succeed in scientific articles

Apprenticeship training in innovation

Brain training to tackle tinnitus

Autonomous navigation for drones

A space suit to live on Mars

Manage the movements of crowds during demonstrations

Authenticate with WI-FI

Rethinking train maintenance with Data

Tutoring for future scientists

Immersion in a school in Senegal

A hope of french fencing

Bachelor and basketball player

The french comedy in the original, surtitled version

A gap year at Gobelins

One-woman band

Sutainable tires for planes

A glove against hand paralysis

Mixed reality serving body and mind

image correspondant aux médicaments

Produce complex molecules faster

- Research -

Aude Nyadanu is one of the 30 recipients of the L’Oréal-Unesco Award for Women in Science in 2017.

For three years, the PhD student, a graduate of the X 2011 class, has been working on multi-component reactions, notably in Laboratory of Organic Synthesis of l’X.

This process makes it possible to create reactions from up to 12 molecular fragments in a single step, and thereby reduce the number of synthetic operations needed for the production of complex molecules.

Although Aude Nyadanu’s work is in the field of fundamental research, it could have a huge impact on the pharmaceutical industry and the discovery of new active ingredients. By slightly modifying reagents, multi-component reactions provide the opportunity to gain easy access to a wide variety of molecules that can then be tested for new drugs.

“The advantage of the reaction I developed, and which was the subject of a published paper, is that, in addition to yielding a complex molecule from three components in a single step, it does not involve metals in the process,” the researcher explains.

This is particularly interesting insofar as metals are rare, expensive and difficult to eliminate. Her work paves the way for faster, more economical, more eco-friendly production of drugs.

The search for efficiency is also apparent in Aude Nyadanu’s start-up project, Lowpital.

The aim is to use collective intelligence and hackathon-type events to develop new low-tech innovations that will improve the daily lives of patients and health professionals.

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img The secret of the velocity of the particles

The secret of the velocity of the particles

- Research -

When he joined the Leprince Ringuet Laboratory in April 2017 for his 3rd year internship, little did Mikael Frosini know that he was about to solve a 60-year-old problem.


Indeed, in order to experimentally determine the momentum of a particle, physicists study its trajectory in a medium: the greater the deflection, the slower its momentum.


However, they come up against the random nature of particle deviation.

In order to develop a more systematic and statistically precise method, Mikael Frosini’s approach combines two methods in an unprecedented way.


On the one hand, the Kalman filter, a statistical tool generally used in finance or robotics, makes it possible to define the track when the momentum is known.

On the other hand, a Bayesian analysis is used to determine the track and momentum of a particle by comparing observations with a theoretical model.


Thus, from all the positions of a particle, the Ingénieur Polytechnicien uses the Kalman filter to simulate different tracks and a Bayesian analysis to determine the most probable and estimate its momentum.


“I applied a general mathematical method to particle physics. This had never been done before in this area,” he explains.

Beyond the progress thus achieved, this internship reinforced Mikael Frosini’s taste for particle physics and desire to pursue work in the field. “I want to focus on subjects that touch on both theory and computer science, similar to the work I did during my internship at the Leprince Ringuet Laboratory.”

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img A MOOC to succeed in scientific articles

A MOOC
to succeed in scientific articles

- Research -

In 2016, Mattias Mano and five other PhD students created the MOOC “How to write and publish a scientific paper.”

In a period of only six months, more than 40,000 people enrolled in the online course offered by Coursera.

The success was such that the team decided a year later to translate it into French.

This project-centred course is designed to guide PhD and Master’s students through the necessary steps in preparing scientific articles for publication in a journal such as Nature or Science.

It was while starting work on his thesis at l’X that Mattias Mano realized the lack of methodological material available for young researchers when it comes to finalizing papers for publication and decided to provide them with a “guidebook” of sorts.

What makes this course particularly attractive for its participants is that they work on a real project and submit their final paper for peer review at the end of the course – a possibility rarely offered to PhD students.

Another attractive feature of the course is that it is designed by PhD students, so participants can identify themselves and give one another advice. Participants also benefitted from interactive video interviews with publishers and already-published researchers.

Since the launch of this MOOC, Mattias Mano has joined the e-learning section of l’X where he is developing methods of learning analytics, mining data from online learning to improve the offer of l’X in this area.

After big data applied to education, the future of MOOCs, according to the doctoral student, resides in the use of artificial intelligence by teachers to personalize courses according to the progress of the individual learner.

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img Apprenticeship training in innovation

Apprenticeship training in innovation

- Research -

Waner Chen, a student in the “Project - Innovation - Conception” (PIC) Master’s program at École Polytechnique, already has a foothold in the business world.

At 26, this native of city of Wenzhou, China is studying in l’X’s first apprenticeship training-focused program, inaugurated in 2016. Waner divides her time between classes at l’X and training at the medical imaging corporation Guerbet. She joined the company’s new digital department, launched in September, where everything remains to be invented.

“I like finding solutions and innovating,” explains the young woman who found Einstein’s and Newton’s discoveries fascinating from the time she was a little girl.

The aim of the department is to develop software to help hospitals and healthcare professionals analyze images.

“An image can be processed on the basis of all the data it generates; that amounts to more than two hundred parameters, such as tumor size or texture analysis,” states Waner Chen, whose data analysis skills earned her a research internship award from the Foundation of École Polytechnique in November 2017.

At Guerbet, she applies the theoretical knowledge from her courses at l’X. “At Guerbet, I am confronted with the reality of the field, and therefore with issues of innovation, marketing, and business,” she notes.

“It is very motivating and concrete to be able to put to immediate use methods learned in my classes at l’X.”

Another benefit of the dual-pronged Master’s program is “the difference a year of experience in a company makes on my CV,” she readily admits.

Waner hopes to take an active part in the digital revolution of the medical sector.

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img Brain training to tackle tinnitus

Brain training to tackle tinnitus

- Innovation -

In France, 20% of the population suffers from chronic tinnitus. Tinnitus takes the form of a whistling or buzzing in the ear.

If the condition lasts more than six months, a pathological mechanism is set in motion and travels to the auditory cortex, to the point of modifying its internal organization.

A neuroscience enthusiast, Robin Guillard, X 2013, completed his third-year internship in the start-up Rythm, created by former students of l’X, where he worked on sensors to monitor brain activity.

He continued his neuroscience studies the following year at University of California, Berkeley, in the United States. “There, I learnt more about the processing of electrical signals, but also about entrepreneurship, and I discovered my desire to work on useful innovations,” says the Ingénieur Polytechnicien student.

Over the past year, he has focused increasingly on tinnitus, putting it at the heart of his entrepreneurial project, the start‑up Zeta Technologies, founded with two former classmates from Berkeley.

Together, they created a brain training tool to re-educate and rearrange the part of the brain responsible for analysing auditory information.

Using an EEG headset and a screen displaying the exercises to be performed, patients can reduce tinnitus on their own.

Now in its prototype stage, the technology they developed, in collaboration with a scientific team, is being tested by a dozen patients afflicted with tinnitus. And they are already testifying to an improvement in their pathology.

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img Autonomous navigation for drones

Autonomous navigation for drones

- Innovation -

At a time when drone use is expanding exponentially, a student at l’X has taken an interest in their autonomous navigation.

To speed up the execution of tasks performed by drones, autonomous navigation makes it possible to dispense with the assistance of a human operator to control and monitor these unmanned vehicles.

Such a system represents a technological challenge since it requires a set of subsystems capable of operating simultaneously.

Franck Djeumou, a student in the Master’s Comasic program, which specializes in the design and modelling of complex industrial systems, already advanced research in this field during his internship at the University of Austin in Texas.

He proposed a solution to problems encountered in autonomous drone navigation in uncontrolled environments.

After having created and programmed three quadrocopters, Franck turned his attention to the flight controller, the brain of the drone.

He succeeded in proving that his innovation made it possible to have drones perform missions correctly based on his calculations alone and without performing a physical simulation.

His work opens the way for many industrial applications for surveillance, search and rescue, or delivery by drone. Franck Djeumou plans to pursue his investigations on drones and more broadly on robots.

After his Master’s degree, he will be joining École Polytechnique’s computer science laboratory as an intern, this time to design formal proof algorithms to be implemented at the heart of the robot system.

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img A space suit to live on Mars

A space suit to live on Mars

- Innovation -

Space agencies do not yet have space suits adapted to the atmospheric conditions found on Mars, even though missions to the planet are expected in coming decades.

For their 2nd year group project, seven Ingénieur Polytechnicien students – Thibault Paris, Arno Passeron, Cédric Nogha, Benjamin Joyeux, Antoine Colin, Quentin Chamayou, and Alfred Hammond – took up the challenge of designing and manufacturing an operational suit that could withstand the environments on Mars.

The students took more than a hundred measurements to model the space suit in 3D.

They also created their own 3D printers to print the entire prototype.

Modular assembly of the suit enables easy maintenance of the various components.

Thus, with the 3D printer, “it will be possible to design, manufacture, repair, and even recycle the suits on site,” explains Thibault Paris, who was the project initiator.

The suit is equipped with an onboard computer that measures in real time various parameters in the immediate environment and the resource consumption of the suit.

“It allows for automatic temperature control of the integrated refrigerant underwear and sends alerts to the wearer in case of malfunction,” says Thibault Paris.

Most of the controls are located in the gloves for easy access.

In December, Thibault Paris and Arno Passeron took part in the Mars Desert Research Station mission organized by the American Mars Society in Utah.

There, they tested their prototype, which could prefigure space suits that will be worn on the red planet.

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img Manage the movements of crowds during demonstrations

Manage the movements of crowds
during demonstrations

- Innovation -

Newly arrived at École Polytechnique, Victor Rambaud, Ingénieur Polytechnicien from X 2017 class, joined the “Synapse” team at the Paris police headquarters for his personal development and military training internship.

The six-person team in the Division of Public Order and Traffic (DOPC) was set up following violent protests against new labour laws in the Spring of 2016.

Its purpose: to study different methods for managing outbursts of violence at such demonstrations.

With a student from Sciences Po, Victor Rambaud alternated field work and administrative tasks.

As an observer, he accompanied the police to the gatherings in commemoration of the terrorist attacks of 13 November, the funeral of Johnny Hallyday in December and Paris-Saint‑Germain matches at Parc des Princes.

From the DOPC command center, he also tracked major demonstrations on social networks and the video streaming app Periscope, and conducted research on subjects such as crowd dynamics, crowd management, crowd violence and the use of variable message signs to communicate with demonstrators.

The goal was to provide the police, the prefect and the Minister of the Interior with information to improve public order management at such events.

In parallel, he collaborated with secondyear students from École Polytechnique, whose group science project involved developing software to model and predict demonstrations in Paris, by providing them with documents and information gathered by the Synapse team.

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img Authenticate with WI-FI

Authenticate with WI-FI

- Corporate connections -

With the proliferation of connected objects and increased mobility, accessing a Wi-Fi network using a password is becoming more and more tiresome.

This is the problem that six Ingénieur Polytechnicien X 2015 class students decided to address in their group science project (PSC).

Paul-Ambroise Duquenne, Guillaume Gette, Pierre-Jean Grenier, Olivier Piau, Antonin Riffard and François de Salivet collaborated with Cisco, which sponsors the international “Internet of Everything” Academic Chair of École Polytechnique.

With the help of an expert in machine learning and deep learning and a mentor from the company, alumnus of l’X, the students developed an algorithm, enriched by machine learning and adapted to inexpensive Wi-Fi routers, allowing users to be authenticated based on location rather than on a password.

“Cisco offers a similar solution with high-end routers.

We wanted to show that it was possible to achieve the same results with more accessible consumer equipment,“ they explain.

And achieve this they did. They successfully tried out their system in a building on the campus of l’X.

It was able to geolocate users in real time and, on this basis, refuse or provide Wi-Fi access.

The possibilities offered by this algorithm are many: restricting network access, tracking user identification in complex structures such as a hotel or an office building, but also offering personalized services based on location.

To expand use of Wi-Fi authentication by location, the six students, whose work was selected in September 2017 during the PSC finals, made their code open source.

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Rethinking train maintenance with data

Rethinking train
maintenance with data

- Corporate connections -

Harvard Business Review named data scientist the sexiest job of the 21st century.

Sixteen students are enrolled in the first class of the joint “Data Science for Business” Graduate Degree program launched by École Polytechnique and HEC in September 2016.

The program’s objective is to provide students with cutting-edge technical expertise and, at the same time, advanced training in business, economics, and innovation.

The focus is on learning by doing. “In parallel with our courses, we undertake a number of data science projects with companies such as Capgemini, Grouped BPCE, or Accenture,” says Henri Hubert, a student of the first class, now in his second year.

From February to March 2017, students worked with the French subsidiary of the global giant Google.

Accompanied by Gael Gilbert, X 2002, then Director of the automotive and real estate sectors, they concentrated on the issue of predictive maintenance for trains.

They worked in groups of four. Based on data from the sensors on trains in operation, they proposed a method that would identify parts likely to exhibit a high level of wear, so they can be replaced before breakdown, and that would simultaneously optimize train maintenance organization.

Even though it was merely an exercise, without collaboration with a railway operator or a builder, the 16 young data scientists managed to develop innovative perspectives on this issue, in order to plan maintenance interventions based on field data instead of having to wait for breakdowns before reacting.

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img Tutoring for future scientist

Tutoring for future scientist

- Solidarity projects -

For his Personal Development Internship, Laurent Attias chose teaching.

Since October 2017, he has been helping the students of Edmond Rostand High School in the Val d'Oise in the last three years of their general, technological or vocational studies.

“Most of the requests for help are in mathematics, but I also get involved in other projects,” Laurent explains.

He acts as an ambassador of l’X, guiding students with high potential to get support from the Diversity and Success Department.

He also volunteered to accompany 40 high school science students to Porquerolles for the first science camp organized by École Polytechnique during the Toussaint holidays.

The concept: alternate science workshops and sports activities during the day, and social events and focus groups at night.

This internship is not Laurent’s first experience in teaching.

During his last two years of high school, he tutored middle school and high school students.

“I had to stop when I was in preparatory class, but I never lost interest in teaching, especially mathematics,” he says.

So naturally, when he arrived at l’X, he chose to do his internship in the field.

He is thinking of pursuing this commitment in the future by becoming involved in the “X-Internat” program to provide specific students in scientific preparatory classes with intensive support in science, general knowledge, and sports.

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img Immersion in a school in Senegal

Immersion in a school in Senegal

- Solidarity projects -

The immersion was immediate for 20-year-old Angélique de Meric de Bellefon.

Right after her arrival in Senegal, this Ingénieur Polytechnicien student gave a math class to seventh graders.

She had come only a day earlier to join the staff at the Maison d’Éducation de Mariama Ba boarding school on the island of Gorée for her sixmonth Personal Development Internship.

Since her arrival in October in this prestigious school for girls, where the students are recruited on the basis of country‑wide competitions, Angélique learned Wolof and memorized the faces and names of the 250 students and teachers of the institution.

Twenty‑five hours a week, she teaches mathematics, physics, and chemistry to all grades of middle and high school students.

In the evening, the intern supervises after school student studies before returning to her room next to the dormitories.

“I am both the teacher they respect and the friend in whom they confide outside of class,” says Angélique affectionately.

She regards this experience as far from one-sided, since it has opened doors for her to another world.

“In my preparatory classes, learning remained academic.

Here I meet different people and discover another culture,” she explains.

Above all, Angelique believes she has developed new skills. She has learned how to adapt and be independent, but also other languages , including Arabic which she intends to continue studying when she returns to l’X.

During her internship, she also became acutely aware of the environmental problems of the country and plans to get involved in projects related to environmental protection, with the help of laboratories at the Research Center of École Polytechnique.

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img A hope of french fencing

A hope of french fencing

- Sport -

He is one of the most promising fencers on the French team.

Baptiste Mourrain, X 2016, has been training since the age of six.

Since he arrived at l’X, he’s been pursuing his engineering studies while devoting 15 hours a week to this sport at INSEP, the National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance, where the best French fencers train.

Currently 100th in international rankings and 8th in the national classification, young as he is, Baptiste Mourrain may well figure among the future athletes representing France at the 2020 Olympic Summer Games organized in Tokyo or the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

“My goal is to participate in a European or international championship within the next two years to acquire the experience I need before the 2020 games, and then to continue to compete in French tournaments and championships,” says the young athlete.

This summer, he will do his second-year internship at the French construction company, Vinci – a perfect fit for Baptiste who hopes to pursue a career there after completing his studies.

“It would allow me to reconcile my desire both to work in civil engineering and to persevere in my sport,” he explains.

There he could benefit from a contract that leaves room for sports practice with time set aside for training and for competitions.

Being a sport that can be practiced at a high level until the age of 35, the sporting adventure will not stop, for Baptiste Mourrain, at the end of his studies.

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img Bachelor and basketball player

Bachelor and basketball player

- Sport -

In Albania, his native country, Edison Reshketa is a public figure. At the age of 18, this nearly 6 foot 3 giant was already participating in television shows and giving interviews to local media.

A student of the first class of Bachelor programme of l’X, Edison Reshketa is also a professional basketball player.

He was nine when he started playing basketball, and 13 when his coach predicted he would have brilliant career as an athlete.

Two years ago, he became a professional player in the Albanian Basketball Superliga, and won his first championship with his BC Vllaznia team.

“It was amazing to see a room of 3,000 spectators, all standing to applaud us,” the young athlete recalls enthusiastically.

At the time, Edison was training for more than two hours a day and traveling all over the country, and sometimes abroad, to play games.

Since his arrival in 2017 at École Polytechnique, he has slowed the pace of his training somewhat but continues playing, alongside his studies, in the basketball team of l’X and in a club in Massy, near the campus.

Basketball has taught him to overcome obstacles, get back on his feet after a failure and manage success.

It has been an “accelerated school of life”, according to this student who devotes as much energy to the sport as to his studies.

At l’X, Edison particularly appreciates group work, at which he excels due to his experience as part of a team.

His upcoming challenges: to be selected to participate next summer in the Europe Under-20 Championship, and succeed his first year of the Bachelor program.

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The french comedy in the original, surtitled version

The french comedy
in the original, surtitled version

- Culture -

Putting innovative technology to use in a multi-centennial institution: this is the task that 13 second-year students took on for their group science project.

Split into two groups, they have developed a global solution for real-time automated captioning of plays at the Comédie Française.

“There are many constraints, which is why such a system doesn’t exist yet: there is the noise in the theatres and the fact that actors speak quickly and improvise,” says Daniel Huynh, one of the project participants.

The work was therefore divided into two parts.

A first team tackled the capture and processing of signals using algorithms to obtain and return information which is as clear and refined as possible.

The second concentrated on voice recognition, with the goal of identifying where the actors are in the play and finding the corresponding sentence in the script, so it can be translated to the audience in the language of their choice.

For this, the 13 Ingénieur Polytechnicien students are developing a server that will support the entire process, from capture and voice recognition through “matching” oral and written text, translating and captioning, to offer a fully automated solution.

In eight months, they will have created a first prototype, tested on recordings from the Comédie Française.

The project’s innovative potential is such that hopefully it will be picked up by another group next year, leading to the creation of a start-up or open source sharing so that the system can be used by other theatres.

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img A gap year at Gobelins

A gap year at Gobelins

- Culture -

There is but a step from computer graphics to animated movies.

Three Ingénieur Polytechnicien students made this move during a gap year spent at the Gobelins school of visual arts, which has one of the leading animation departments in the world.

Nicolas Nghiem, Laetitia Teodorescu and Nicolas Donati followed different paths at the school.

The first studied 3D animation at the Annecy site, while the two others made a short animated film and undertook more technical enterprises in an animation studio in Paris.

Laetitia Teodorescu is working on a virtual reality application for storyboarders, designed to make their work more intuitive by, for example, making it easier to correct the frequent inaccuracies when it comes to scales on storyboard plans created on a 2D tablet.

Using the app and a virtual reality headset, storyboarders can “dive into the environment of a film recreated in 3D to find the right point of view and thereby obtain images more rapidly and with a better rendering of scale, which will then be used for the storyboard,” Laetitia explains.

After having specialized, like her two classmates, in computer vision and graphics in her third year at l’X, the 22-year-old has put into practice her knowledge in computer science, mathematics and geometry applied to shape space.

Formerly the president of Binet Bozar, a student club dedicated to visual arts, she is also developing her artistic skills: in addition to developing this app, she co-directed a short film with Nicolas Donati and another student, to be presented at the Festival d’Annecy.

Next year, the three Ingénieur Polytechnicien students will join the computer graphics department of Télécom ParisTech.

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img One-woman band

One-woman band

- Culture -

Having spent all her school years in bilingual schools in Paris, it was only logical that Kayo Yin decided to pursue her academic career in an international environment.

After her baccalauréat, the 18-year‑old enrolled in September 2017 in the first class of the Bachelor program at École Polytechnique, entirely taught in English, with foreign students accounting for 60% of enrolments.

In addition to mathematics, which she has loved since childhood, the young woman has been developing her passion for music at l’X.

In fact, her dorm room accommodates a quintet, composed of a flute, a saxophone, a ukulele, a harmonica and an ocarina.

Endowed with absolute pitch, she joined the orchestra of the Plateau de Saclay and has already performed at several concerts as a flutist, including one in the prestigious setting of the Madeleine Church.

These have given her the opportunity to meet students from other disciplines and develop relationships with other student musicians.

“I particularly appreciate the atmosphere of an orchestra where all the instruments are in unison,” says the young woman who regards music as telling a story and conveying emotions.

Kayo first started playing the piano at the age of 4, before learning to play the flute, trumpet and saxophone.

As a teenager, she spent more time at the music conservatory than at the school.

Even today, at l’X, she devotes about ten hours a week to practicing her instruments and sings with the school choir.

And when the campus is asleep, she practices her scales on the piano in one of the ten music spaces in the dormitories of École Polytechnique.

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img Sustainable tires for planes

Sustainable tires for planes

- Challenge -

Their idea was selected by Airbus from among five hundred projects from around the world.

Gabriele Leoncini, Lisa Zafoschnig, Claudio Bonvino and Jonas van Stappen, students in the Graduate Degree Program “Energy Environment” and “Economics, Data Analytics and Corporate Finance”, took part in the Airbus Fly Your Ideas competition, which challenges students to innovate for the future of aviation.

The students focused on the wear and tear of tires, which are in great demand during touch-downs and need to be replaced every 50 to 200 flights.

“Not only does this lead to high maintenance costs for aircraft operators, it also has an environmental impact,” says Gabriele Leoncini, student in the “Energy Environment” program.

The four students explored ways to activate tire rotation before landing to reduce wear by 50%.

Their innovation is based on the addition of small wings on the wheels and a film of air on the tire or rim, to cause the wheel to spin under the effect of the air flow when the landing gear unfolds.

To develop their project, the students performed fluid dynamics simulations on prospective designs, then created their model using a 3D printer in the fab lab of l’X, before testing it in wind tunnels at Research Center of École Polytechnique.

Throughout the design of their prototype, they benefitted from guidance from a mentor from Airbus.

Thanks to their system, they have seen a reduction of 46% in rubber consumption.

However, obstacles remain to make their idea viable.

The team is now considering transmitting the project to other students or proposing it to industrialists for improvement.

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img A glove against hand paralysis

A glove against hand paralysis

- Challenge -

Video games have a special place in Giorgi Tskhovrebadze's life.

The young Georgian, who joined the first class of the Bachelor program at École Polytechnique in September, managed to turn his passion into a profession.

At just 18, he is already at the head of a promising start-up, RehabGlove, that markets an exoskeleton glove to assist patients who have suffered from a stroke and lost control of one of their hands.

In the first stages of the treatment, the glove reproduces the movements made by the healthy hand; once the patient has recovered enough strength to make micro-movements with the damaged hand, the glove uses force sensors to support them and allow the two hands to perform separate tasks. To make the experience more entertaining, the startup couples its glove with a virtual reality headset to allow patients to be immersed in the environment of their choice, and to visualize the movements of their hands as well as possible.

“Gamification is an important part of the rehabilitation process because it works with the patient’s motivation and progress,” says Giorgi Tskhovrebadze who is not at his first venture with games.

At age 13, he developed an online video game, Fly and Smash, which attracted more than 100,000 active members every month, and his latest game, Wild Ones Remake, launched last year, has already won over more than a million players.

With his start-up, Giorgi has competed in numerous national and international competitions.

It won as Georgia’s most promising startup at the Seedstars competition for entrepreneurs from emerging markets, and is in the running for the world finals.

The glove was also voted “Best Innovation in Central Eastern Europe” by Microsoft.

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Mixed reality serving body and mind

Mixed reality
serving body and mind

- Challenge -

Dodging virtual cubes thrown at full speed or memorising circles of colours in record time are two of the games in the app designed by five Ingénieur Polytechnicien students.

For their second-year group science project, Thomas Galeon, Thomas Dupuis, Maxime Bourliatoux, Alexandre Brenelliere and Nicolas Augusti created OverSkill, a self‑improvement app designed to help users develop physical and cognitive skills in a fun and interactive way.

OverSkill was developed for Microsoft HoloLens.

These smartglasses use new mixed reality technology for simulations mixing virtual elements with real settings into which all types of interface and elements can be projected into the surrounding space.

The students are pioneers inasmuch as they were the first in France to build an app for the product developed by the computer firm.

By stimulating physical and mental activity, OverSkill could help combat the effects of neurodegenerative diseases.

This topic is of particular interest to Thomas Galeon who plans to conduct research in the field of microfluidics, a discipline that reinvents the protocols of biology and medical diagnostics.

Having won the French contest of the Microsoft Imagine Cup, the student team went on to pitch their idea at the Imagine Cup World Finals in Seattle.

For Thomas Galeon, a member of the student association Cabinet Start‑Up, which promotes entrepreneurship at l’X, this experience bolstered his plan to start a business after his studies.

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