Doira Youth Association organizes since 2003 an educational activity called Young Scientists Conference (Jornadas de Jóvenes Científicos, JJC). From the beginning, Doira was helped by Club Financiero Vigo for promotion and by many private companies and public institutions for support.

Acto de clausura de las Jornadas en el Club Financiero Vigo - 2008

JJC is an activity aimed to High School students, and its main goal is the promotion of their technological and scientific interests, giving them the opportunity to develop an appealing and demanding hands-on technological project. At the same time, JJC tries to improve students’ social skills,  essential to become a good scientist.

First edition of JJC took place between March and June 2003. 30 students aged 15 to 17 attended the Conference. The success of this first edition was endorsed by a special award granted at the International Innovation Fair Galáctica 2003.

In subsequent years, the activity went on with more advanced projects. Attendants were awarded with several prizes, such as the Second National Award given by the Instituto de la Juventud (Injuve) in the 18th National Young Researchers Conference (Certamen de Jóvenes Investigadores, 2005).

Momentos antes del lanzamiento de AIRSat (Nevada, 2006)

The second JJC edition took place in 2006 with an even more complex technical project. Professor Robert Twiggs, Director of the Space Systems Development Laboratory at Stanford University, sent us an invitation to attend ARLISS, an international competition with university students coming from USA, Canada and Japan.

The technical goal of this competition is the design, development and testing of a suborbital satellite or space probe, which is launched to a height of  4 Km and must be capable of coming back autonomously (without human control from earth), landing in a predefined circular spot 25 meters in diameter.

Our project, called AIRSat, got the third position in terms of distance to the landing spot. Only two Japanese projects from Tokio University achieved a closer landing. AIRSat was also rewarded with several national and international awards, and got the appreciation of the European Space Agency (ESA), which enrolled one of our students into the ESMO project, a student Lunar orbiter currently under development.

The third JJC edition begun in February 2008. 16 students joined the Conference for the development of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) aimed to the detection and surveillance of wild fires. Their work was presented and accepted by the organizers of the second UAV Outback Challenge in Australia, and was also rewarded with the second National Award in the 22th National Young Researchers Conference (Certamen de Jóvenes Investigadores, 2009).

During these years, JJC has demonstrated the effectiveness of the activity.  Students receive a wide and grounded social and scientific education which improves their skills and rises their hopes; they learn to develop complex projects sharing their work, to improve their way of studying and solving problems, to give a presentation with their results… And all this with a direct possitive influence in their ordinary academic duties.