Reports

The Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, led by conductor Jiří Habart, performed in front of a packed Dvořák Hall of Rudolfinum. The clarinet solo belonged to Anna Paulová.

On the afternoon of Wednesday 8 January, students of Czech Technical University in Prague met with the President of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel. The debate took place in the largest hall of the building in Prague's Dejvice district, where the Rectorate of the CTU is located, and was streamed to other participants in the large auditorium. Despite the presence of several hundred students in both rooms, there was not enough for everyone, as the interest in the Czech president was huge.

How can I play a computer game and interact freely with the game characters without restrictions? Current traditional story-based games often limit player-character interaction to predefined sets of actions and dialogue options, which does not allow for wider interaction. CTU FIT student Ing. Jiří Macháček in his master thesis came up with an innovative solution in his game called HaLLMark. He focused on the use of large language models to tell game stories through non-player characters (NPCs). The goal was to create a playable prototype that would allow you to freely interact with NPCs and tell your own in-game story. This work earned him the Dean's Award in the summer semester of AR 2023/2024.

Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, CTU has been providing accommodation for Ukrainian refugees in its dormitories. Already in 2022, the staff of the Rector's Office of the CTU contributed to gifts for children staying at Strahov. And they did so again this year, for the third time, as the war still goes on. The gifts were presented by the Rector of the CTU Vojtěch Petráček, Chancellor Lucie Orgoníková and the Director of the SÚZ Michal Vodička.

Prof. Zdeněk Bittnar, Dean Emeritus of Faculty of Civil Engineering, who is currently working at the Department of Mechanics, was awarded the Prof. Zdeněk P. Bažant Award for 2023 for his lifetime shaping of the field of engineering mechanics in the Czech Republic and abroad.

The Rectorate of Czech Technical University in Prague hosted a festive event that brought together young creativity with technological innovation on Thursday, 12 December 2024. The winners of the "Capture Allure" competition, organised in cooperation between Peugeot and the Masaryk Institute of Advanced Studies of Czech Technical University (MIAS), were announced. This initiative aimed to inspire students to capture the unique values of the Peugeot brand through photos and videos, while allowing them to test the latest electric vehicles.

The virtual reality application, introduced in February 2024 by developers from the Department of Computer Graphics and Interaction, became the main inspiration for this year's Christmas video of CTU Faculty of Electrical Engineering. In the video, the heroes of the story, a student and her two classmates, undertake a virtual space expedition in search of a star that will decorate their Christmas tree. This year, CTU FEL has continued the tradition of Christmas cards, which it established three years ago with a video with robots.

The Construction Literacy Education Programme (StaGram), which successfully launched in September 2024, was created with the support of the National Centre for Construction 4.0 to introduce young people to the fascinating world of construction. In partnership with leading construction firms and universities, it visited the first 60 schools this year. For 2025, it has an ambitious target to double the number of schools visited.

CTU Faculty of Information Technology has released another episode of its popular podcast "Ones and Zeros".

What does it take to play a board game with a humanoid robot? Scientists from the Humanoid Robotics Group at Faculty of Electrical Engineering, presented HARMONIOUS, a reactive system for real-time control of robot motion. A scientific paper on the new algorithm, which gives the humanoid the ability to move very naturally and safely among humans, has been published in the renowned journal IEEE Transactions on Robotics.