On 15 June 2023, the participants were welcomed in the auditorium at Charles Square by the Deputy Vice-Dean for Education, doc. Ing. Jan Řezníček. This was followed by a small taste of university teaching in the form of a series of lectures on the results of projects carried out at the Center of Aviation and Space Research and the Department of Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics. At the end, the students received basic information about the nature of flying and the principles of building a throwing aircraft, which they will construct themselves the next day. The lectures were so interesting for the participants that after the lectures were over they asked the lecturers many questions. Before leaving Charles Square, they visited the laboratories of the Institute of Aircraft Technology and the microscopy laboratory of the Innovation Centre for Diagnostic and Application of Materials.
The afternoon programme was reserved for excursions in the faculty laboratories in Dejvice. The students visited 8 laboratories in turn according to the interest expressed in advance. There, they were given a short explanation of the ongoing teaching and research and development projects. Of course, there were also insider answers to numerous questions. In the evening, the whole group moved to Strahov dormitory where accommodation was prepared and soon returned to Dejvice where the program continued at the Faculty's conference centre. After a group dinner, representatives of the student clubs presented their activities and achievements, and then informal discussions with students and faculty continued until late.
The second day was dedicated to team-based creative competitions. In the laboratory of the Department of Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, students worked in small teams to solve the construction of an airplane made of balsa wood, polystyrene and radio control. The topic intrigued the students. No one was bored, enthusiasm prevailed in all teams and the creative ideas of the future engineers quickly came to fruition. Before lunch, the teams had time to complete their models, adjust their minor flaws and try a few flights. The end was truly competitive. The design of the throwing plane was judged and the longest range was measured. The culmination of the event was the announcement of the winning models. In the long corridor of the indoor laboratories, the record range was 32 meters.
The second year of the "Taste Mechanical Engineering" event ended to mutual satisfaction. Participants confirmed in an anonymous survey that they were pleasantly surprised by the organization of the event and half of them are considering applying to study at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Therefore, we can believe that the students will take away a lot of interesting experiences, tell their friends about them and that we will meet some of them again, this time as students of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering.
