Slots City Foundation and the VOL Volunteer Optical Laboratory have repaired over 2,000 drones for the army. This partnership, which began in June 2023, provides military personnel with free repair services for their “battle birds” and is part of the “Free Sky” project developed by Slots City Foundation with its partners.
“When we started helping the military with drones, we realized that repair is a quick and effective solution,” says Artem Stohniy, director of Slots City Foundation. “We noticed that often only a few parts malfunction, which cost significantly less than a new drone. So we decided to organize repairs on a systematic basis, thus promptly assisting our defenders.”
The foundation collaborates with several partner laboratories to which damaged drones are directed, depending on the workload of the technicians, in order to repair the “birds” as quickly as possible. Here’s how it works: the military delivers UAVs to the laboratories, where the equipment is carefully inspected. Since many trophy drones are now being repaired, this is done extremely cautiously, considering the potential for explosives. For each drone, a defect report is prepared, indicating what needs to be replaced, and then the equipment is passed on to engineers who disassemble, attach new components, and assemble the updated devices. After repair, each drone is tested, including on the test range. Only after this process are the repaired devices returned to the military. Together with its partners, the Foundation has already repaired over 2,000 “battle birds.”
“If we receive a drone with minor faults, such as a broken ‘leg’ that just needs replacement, the repair process is quick. However, sometimes the drone is completely disassembled, including the electronics, which then takes more time to restore. On average, our engineers can repair from 3 to 5 devices per day,” says Oleksandra Brisova, former CEO of the VOL charitable foundation.
The cooperation between the foundation and the VOL laboratory began in the summer of 2023. Donations from Slots City Foundation help repair battle-damaged equipment for the military free of charge. Additionally, for VOL, the ongoing partnership with Slots City Foundation allows them to work continuously.
“For our project to exist, we need to constantly purchase parts from all over the world, and because of this, the delivery time is very long, sometimes up to 3 months. Additionally, funding from patrons allows us to pay for the work of engineers, rent premises, and so on. Therefore, the main thing the foundation gives us is reliability and stability, and I believe that this contribution is simply invaluable,” shares Oleksandra.
Currently, partners are working on increasing productivity. “Our goal is to have more drones, including through repairs. So our plans relate to our two directions: drones and optics,” says Oleksandra. “Now, in addition to repairs, we are working with partners on purchasing new ‘birds’ and on domestic developments,” adds Artem. The more operational drones there are in the army, the more opportunities our military will have, believe the partners.
In addition to partnering with VOL, Slots City Foundation, as part of the “Free Sky” project, also assists several other workshops that repair damaged UAVs for the military free of charge, and also develops new designs. “Free Sky” is one of our largest projects,” says the director of Slots City Foundation. “In addition to repairs, we purchase new drones, finance test models for developers. This includes our work with FPV drones and long-range drones, which we are actively developing.” You can help the Volunteer Optical Laboratory VOL at https://vol.com.ua.
Artem Stohnii is a professional manager with extensive experience in both the public sector and private business.
Oleg KONONCHUK is an experienced manager, specialising in the implementation of innovative projects in the field of IT, e-commerce, telecommunications.
He has been in IT since he was 16 and has occupied top positions in many high-tech projects.
Major competence of Stanislav Andreev is marketing and everything related to it, primarily digital marketing.
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