While the first year was attended by about a hundred children, according to the main organizer Dr. Michaela Kostelecka, there will be about four hundred this year. The programme, divided into the sections "Little Bachelor" (1st to 4th grades of primary school) and "Little Engineer" (5th to 8th grades of primary school and the corresponding grades of grammar schools), will again introduce them to matriculation, after which a series of engaging courses and exercises will begin.
At Faculty of Electrical Engineering, children will get to program Lego robots or miniature robots, called ozobots, and get acquainted with industrial robots and drones developed at the Faculty. They will also try out the role of small opticians and opticians, make a light-up toy, try amateur radio and get practical information about internet safety. They will also learn some interesting facts about biomedical research.
Teachers from Faculty of Biomedical Engineering of Czech Technical University will also introduce children to the area between technology and medicine. They will show them, for example, the various forms of the fascinating world under the microscope and the range of activities that the work of biomedical engineers entails.
Faculty of Information Technology prepared a Roboprogramme for young students - specifically demonstrations and tasks related to humanoid robots. At Faculty of Civil Engineering, children will build polystyrene models based on the models of professional builders and builders, perform various chemical experiments under expert guidance and exercise their brains with a wide range of puzzles.
The experience of driving a car or a motorbike will be provided to the young participants thanks to the simulators in the programme of Faculty of Transportation Sciences. At this station, they will also take a virtual reality walk and experience motorbikes developed by the CTU Lions student team. Children will also visit a laboratory focused on the use of virtual reality in practice at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. And the "machine faculty" has also prepared for them a crash course in casting samples or a programme with an aviation theme.
"All the faculty facilities are popular with the children because each child is interested in something different. However, the most popular are humanoid or industrial robots," said Michaela Kostelecká, the organiser, adding that this year's novelty is a whole dozen new stations across the faculties. She also pointed out that the Children's University programme already goes beyond the "borders" of the CTU. The Police Presidium of the Czech Republic and the Office of the President of the Police are cooperating on it, so children will see, for example, demonstrations of police technology on the Dejvice campus. The Children's University programme also includes a final graduation ceremony in the Bethlehem Chapel.
Michaela Kostelecká also stressed that positive feedback is essential for her and her team of people in charge of the demanding programme. "The enthusiasm of the parents and children gives me the strength to reach the goal every year. All you have to do is go to see a child accompanied by a parent or grandparent in the afternoon and the child talks enthusiastically about what he or she experienced all the way to the metro entrance," Kostelecká described. "I also perceive satisfaction in the fact that within a minute of the opening of registration we have fully exhausted our capacity," concluded the main organizer.
Photo gallery from last year can be viewed here https://media.cvut.cz/cs/foto/20230710-detska-univerzita-cvut