There has long been great interest in this competition, in which students enter as teams of two or three. “Hall of the Year combines the knowledge gained during their studies with creativity and ingenuity, manual dexterity, and the overall adrenaline-fueled nature of the event. At the same time, students learn to work in teams and thus pool their abilities. The competition has very strict rules, so students also prepare for their future careers, where they will need to take a range of regulations into account,” says Associate Professor Vladimír Žďára from the Department of Building Structures at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, which serves as the competition’s academic guarantor.
This year’s task in the Junior high school category and the Academic university category was to design and build a model of a bridge over a river with boats sailing beneath it. In the Advanced category, the technical part of the rules was announced on the day of the competition; the task for the doctoral teams was to build a firebird’s nest. During the load test, weights were placed on the models according to precise specifications until the structure collapsed. The winning team is the one whose model achieves the highest efficiency, i.e., the best ratio between load-bearing capacity and its own weight.
A total of 77 teams competed in the international Academic category, 16 of which came from abroad. First place went to The Adamant team from the Warsaw University of Technology, consisting of Adrian Ciura and Kacper Bednarczuk; their model weighed 269.7 grams and lifted a load of 86.37 kilograms, resulting in an efficiency rating of 319.55. Two other Polish teams also placed in the top five: second place went to another team from Warsaw University of Technology, and fourth place went to a team from Koszalin University of Technology. Teams of students from the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the Czech Technical University in Prague placed third and fifth. A total of 52 teams competed in the Junior high school category. First place went to the CRAFTSMANI team, consisting of Jakub Samler, Jakub Hlaváček, and Jakub Bednář from the Secondary Technical School of Civil Engineering in Hradec Králové. Their model weighed 364.1 g, carried a load of 57.75 kilograms, and achieved an efficiency of 158.16. In the Advanced doctoral category, 5 teams competed, and the victory went to the Stavařský komando team, consisting of Eliška Kafková, Věra Kabíčková, and Jan Macháček from the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the Czech Technical University in Prague.
“The Hall of the Year competition was established at our faculty forty years ago, and it remains highly relevant today. The high level of interest from participating students and spectators—including both students and faculty members across the entire faculty—shows that they view it as an opportunity for professional growth and as a showcase of real-world project scenarios. As part of our curriculum, we teach students to model structures and calculate their stresses, but in this competition, they can put these skills into practice and directly identify the weaknesses in their designs. “They can also receive valuable feedback from participating corporate partners and establish contacts important for their future careers,” says Prof. Petr Konvalinka, Dean of the Faculty of Civil Engineering at CTU in Prague.
The Hala roku Structure Challenge event was held under the auspices of the Dean of the Faculty of Civil Engineering at CTU in Prague, Prof. Petr Konvalinka, and ČKAIT, which also served as a professional partner for the students of the Faculty of Civil Engineering in this competition. The Department of Building Structures at the Faculty of Civil Engineering served as the technical guarantor. The general partner of the competition was HOCHTIEF CZ, and support was also provided by a number of leading companies in the construction sector.
Detailed information and results for all competition categories are available at: halaroku.fsv.cvut.cz.