The second year of the Pneuracer competition attracted 15 final teams to the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering on Thursday, June 5. Students of the Třinec grammar school came for the imaginary gold with their compressed air car. The fact that the event fulfils its purpose, namely to attract young people to technology, has been proven since the first year: some of last year's participants are now studying at the faculty, and two have even joined the organizational team.

Jan Kasal watches the computer screen and fine-tunes the last details on their rover. With his friends from the team – Kiki, Vojta and Marek, who unfortunately could not come to the top of the competition in person, they fought their way to the final of the Pneuracer competition. It is mid-afternoon, and the competitors are waiting for the third and last block of final disciplines. Acceleration, range, track passage or hill start are evaluated.

"We were here last year. We enjoyed it, so we signed up again. This year we wanted to make our car even lighter, which we quite failed to do, but we changed the whole engine concept. This year, we have a four-cylinder engine that works perfectly," says Jan. The team come from Krucemburk, they got together in the Salesian Youth Centre. "So far, we are doing quite well. We are even leading at maximum speed, which I hope will stay with us," he adds with a smile.

Similar teams of high school students, such as those from Krucemburk, applied for participation in this year's Pneuracer. Their task is to build a vehicle powered by compressed air, which includes a range of knowledge and skills that students must acquire: from pneumatic systems to 3D printing to electronics. The key is that they can try everything out in practice and can also compete. 15 teams advanced to the finals through the intermediate rounds.

"Not only was there more interest in the second year of the competition, but you can also see at first glance a much higher quality of the cars. It is clear that some teams already have experience and come up with new, more interesting solutions, so there are a lot more functional cars that achieve really beautiful results. We even achieved a record in the Long Distance discipline, where one team rode an incredible 1,274 meters," says Matúš Ranuša from the Institute of Machine Design.

As a teacher, Ranuša has already met some of last year's participants at the faculty. Even though the competition was held for the first time, they did not hesitate and decided to study at the faculty. "We even have a whole team from last year that is now studying the Design Engineering program, so we meet them regularly. We even have two of them in the organising team," says Ranuša with a smile. And he adds: "The interest in the competition and the enthusiasm of the students show that they are happy to do it. Competing teams are often formed directly within individual high schools, which challenge each other, and in the end, they come to us to compete against each other."

His words are confirmed by Kiki from the SHM Krucemburk team. "I wanted to try something new. And when I saw the guys from the team and their enthusiasm, it was so inspiring," concludes the high school student.

The main partner of the competition is SMC Industrial Automation CZ s.r.o.