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This pan-European science-popularisation event was launched this year on Friday 27 September and 50 cities in the Czech Republic took part in it. Universities, museums and even observatories tried to make science accessible to the general public during the event. In Pilsen, the centre of the Night of Scientists was once again the University of West Bohemia (UWB).

On the campus of the University of West Bohemia, those interested in science found four sites - the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, the Faculty of Applied Sciences and the University Library. In these buildings, they had the opportunity to discover a total of 50 displays of scientists from UWB and their partners engaged in technical and social science research between 5 and 10 pm last Friday. This year, visitors could see representatives of Techmania Science Center, Robotics Centre, Doosan Škoda Power or Eurocentrum Plzeň. This year, for the first time, all 9 faculties within the university were involved.

Science could be experienced with multiple senses on the UWB campus. For example, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering (FEL) invited the public to its acoustic chamber for sound testing. Visitors could encounter interesting sounds already in front of the faculty building, where many visitors were attracted by the so-called KapFELa, a robotic student band referring to the Faculty of Electrical Engineering: "We try to play songs that people know, like Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple or Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones. We choose mainly rock songs. I play the guitar myself, but I haven't had it in my hands for a long time, I'm more into programming at the moment," said Jakub Skorunka, a student.

Visitors' eyes were crossing at the Techmania exhibition, where Natálie Nešporová demonstrated the transformation of scarecrows: "The programme we have here today is called Masking. Scarecrows change and evolve during their lives. Yet they are constantly trying to camouflage themselves in the environment." The Faculty of Economics (FEK) then mills people for money. But only for the purpose of being able to check the authenticity of the banknotes by looking at a special machine and whether they were carrying a counterfeit in their wallet. But what scored the most points with the visitors from the visual point of view was the traditional video mapping directed by the Faculty of Design and Art Ladislav Sutnar (FUD), i.e. a light projection that lit up one of the campus buildings from the outside. The audiovisual work, entitled Metamorphosis, depicted the eternal process of transformation permeating nature, man and time.

As far as the sense of smell is concerned, the Faculty of Applied Sciences (FAV) was certainly interesting for the participants of the Night of Scientists, where various chemical experiments took place, which you could feel both by smell and touch, as those who had fear done for them could try, for example, lighting bubbles in their palm and find out whether this experiment burns or not.

History buffs could be won over by the Faculty of Arts (FF) display in the University Library. It featured archaeological research of the Fortress of Silence. However, one of the FEL's displays was also interesting: "Our stand shows the historical development of energy systems. We start with the oldest, which is the steam engine, and move on to water turbines and modern renewables based on photovoltaic systems and hydrogen. Visitors like the history, i.e. steam engines, the most," said teacher Milan Bělík with a smile.

The students of the Church Grammar School in Pilsen also presented their own exhibition that evening. The Secondary School of Industry from Tachov was inspired by the UWB this year and would like to organize the Night of Scientists in Tachov next year.

"We liked the dry ice the best so far," revealed the young visitor, who was complemented by a small comment from her father: "It's interesting here, I like it, I would just like to be more systematic. The individual exhibitions seem to me to be haphazardly arranged." Little Jáchym enjoyed the Faculty of Health Studies (FZS) exhibition, where he tried CPR on a mannequin. "Unlike Jáchym, I am here for the first time this year. Now we have started and we intend to go through all the expositions. I'm most interested in the video mapping, which will be from 7:30 pm," said the escort of a young visitor and two other visitors of about the same age.

The central theme of the event this year was Transformation, which referred to the 100th anniversary of Franz Kafka's death and his short story of the same name. At the same time, the date of 27 September itself is also related to science, as it was on this date in 1905 that Albert Einstein was to send a paper with the formula E = mc² to the Annalen der Physik.

You can see how the Night of the Scientists turned out in the photo gallery.