Not only carving beams. STAV FAV Camp introduced students to the restoration of historic buildings

The three-day STAV FAV Camp concluded a series of summer schools organized by the FAV. More than 20 students from high schools in four different regions of the Czech Republic had the opportunity to work on historic buildings through excursions and practical workshops led by experts.

The third year of STAV FAV Camp, which focused on the restoration of historic buildings and concluded a series of seven summer schools organized by the Faculty of Applied Sciences at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen (FAV UWB), included lectures by experts from construction companies who discussed the restoration of important Pilsen monuments, such as the main railway station and the city's underground.

The theory was followed by excursions – the first took students from grammar schools and construction industry schools to the renovated building of the Faculty of Education at the University of West Bohemia, where they also had a look at the technological facilities in the attic. They then headed to the Center for Building Heritage in Plasy. Here, they viewed exhibitions on the history of construction and, in the monastery setting, learned technical drawing of historical buildings under the guidance of an architect.

The highlight of the program was a visit to Opálka Castle near Klatovy. Summer school participants tried their hand at traditional beam carving techniques that our ancestors have used for centuries. They also prepared mortar and plastered the walls of the smithy. "The students were great, they came from four regions of the country, and I hope we inspired them to pursue the wonderful field of construction and the preservation of historic buildings," said Jan Kubát from the Department of Mechanics at FAV, evaluating this year's program.

The event is organized by the Department of Construction Engineering at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, where students can study civil engineering at both the bachelor's and master's levels. Students learn to understand a building as a whole, the process of its design, and its integration into its surroundings. They learn to use traditional and modern construction systems, building materials, and their structural and physical properties. Graduates leave school equipped with the skills to perform in leadership positions, particularly in design, implementation, or expert teams in the areas of design or construction of buildings, or even at building authorities and departments.

STAV FAV Camp is part of a wider range of summer schools offered by the faculty, which are supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, and attended this year by almost 130 students, mainly from secondary schools. This year, they could choose from the Campo Lampone and Campo Arduino camps focused on cybernetics, the GeoCamp camp dedicated to geomatics, the NanoCamp physics camp, the MechCamp camp organized by the Department of Mechanics, or try out artificial intelligence and computer graphics at the Summer School of Informatics. "I am thrilled that our summer schools are constantly evolving and new ones are being added. I was there when the cybernetics summer schools were created, and I can see how beautifully the whole project has grown," concluded Miloš Železný, Dean of the Faculty of Applied Sciences.