Reports

Tereza Havránková, a student of the Project Management and Engineering master's programme, succeeded in the International Real Estate Challenge 2022 (IREC), which took place in Italy at the Politecnico di Milano from 10 to 21 January. The competition was sponsored by RICS - Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and four students from the Faculty of Civil Engineering of CTU participated in it.

For many years, the team of prof. Ing. Karel Roubík, Ph.D., from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, CTU (FBMI) has been studying respiration, gas exchange and the probability of survival of a person buried in avalanche snow. CTU The Faculty of Electrical Engineering, the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport of Charles University and the Czech Army also cooperate in the research.

An international team led by the Advanced Materials Group at the Department of Control Engineering at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering(Mengzhou Liao, Paolo Nicolini, Victor Claerbout, Tomáš Polcar) has taken advantage of the unique properties of so-called two-dimensional materials and measured the lowest coefficient of friction to date: one millionth. With such low friction, it would theoretically be possible to move an object weighing a thousand tonnes with just one hand. The work was published in the prestigious Nature Materials journal in January 2022.

Modern engineering is no longer based on mechanics alone. The Faculty of Mechanical Engineering applies current technological trends and the latest knowledge in robotics, automation, additive manufacturing and process control to teaching. It is unique in many technical areas. It has its own testing facilities for aircraft engines, provides homologation of new cars and develops innovative machining tools. It incorporates new technologies into its curricula. Students learn how machines can make life better, how they are improved and how they are designed using new discoveries and processes.

President Miloš Zeman appointed new rectors of eleven universities at Prague Castle on 26 January 2022. The current rector of the Czech Technical University doc. Vojtěch Petráček was among them, elected by the CTU Academic Senate as the person nominated for rector on 27 October 2021. Doc. Petráček's new and second term of office will begin on 1 February 2022 and will last until 2026.

To achieve peak performance, athletes need to be 100% healthy. Therefore, it is necessary to supplement the training process with a recovery phase, starting from the early age of athletes. Thanks to the possibilities of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering of the CTU (FBMI), cooperation with the hockey club Rytíři Kladno has begun in the field of rehabilitation of youth hockey teams.

The new laboratory will satisfy the demand of Czech companies for experts in the design and implementation of semiconductor chips.

The Faculty of Information Technology (FIT) hosted a Day of Open Doors on Thursday, 13 January, both in a face-to-face and online format. Visitors who came in person met with lecturers and students and listened to lectures about studies and the admission procedure. Applicants also had the opportunity to browse the presentation stands of the study majors and to see the faculty premises, including the laboratories.

Construction 4.0. introduces and optimises the synergy of digitalisation, automation and sustainable environmental behaviour into construction practice. It is a completely new way of thinking, planning, implementing and maintaining buildings, throughout their entire life cycle. It maps and minimises the impact of construction on the external environment and the footprint that these activities leave permanently in the surrounding nature. The establishment of the National Centre for Construction 4.0 is therefore an important step on the road to the technological future of the Czech Republic. Representatives of professional organisations, academia, government and industry agreed on this today at the Czech Technical University in Prague.

Students of the Faculty of Information Technology (FIT) have developed a unique training aid for professional and recreational volleyball players. They have combined their competitive volleyball experience with the knowledge gained from their IT studies and developed a lighting aid called Training lights. The training aid is based on light strips that are controlled by a mobile app. The player has to react according to how the strips light up. This will improve his reactions, making his performance more efficient in the match itself.