Limited resources, limited time – these were the main variables that sparked creativity in technical students in dealing with the engineering challenge within the stojLAB Challenge. The first year of the hackathon for high school students took place on Friday, June 6, 2025, in the open workshop strojLAB at the Institute of Machine and Industrial Design, FME BUT. The winner of the competition, whose goal was to deliver a ping-pong ball to the centre of the target, was the Mechaaaani team.

"We were inspired by the story of a NASA team that had to design a viable solution to connect the filter elements in Apollo 13 in a limited time and with limited resources. Similarly, our competitors only had a box of components and six hours of time to design the device," described the main organiser David Škaroupka.

To build a vehicle with a mechanism that releases the ball at a given place after a signal, or a machine that shoots the ball at an optimal speed so that it flies exactly to the centre? There were several strategies that the students decided to choose. David Škaroupka praised all eight student teams for how they were able to work independently, search for information and improvise.

Although mentors from the team of the Institute teachers motivated the students to continuously test the prototype of the device under development, some teams did not make it before the final round. "Unfortunately, for some promising concepts, this had a negative impact on the results. One of the skills that we want to strengthen in students through strojLAB is development through repeated prototyping, which continuously verifies the limits of the design in the real world," explained David Škaroupka.

The strojLAB Challenge took place as a pilot run of the international DiSTT project, where representatives of the Institute are working on new teaching procedures. "The aim is to intensify cooperation with other educational organisations, in the case of this event, it was Fab Lab Brno, but also cooperation with industrial partners. We were pleased that our invitation to speak to students was accepted by Mr. Jiří Průša from PRUSA RESEARCH," concluded David Škaroupka. The winning Mechaanici team received tickets to the FAB25 international maker meeting, which was held in the Czech Republic for the first time in history.

The competition also offered an accompanying program for the teachers. First, they met with the Vice-Dean for Bachelor's Studies, Jana Hoderová, who introduced them to the Partner School programme, and then they had the opportunity to look into selected laboratories of the Department of Machine Design. In the afternoon, the teachers joined their students and could watch their efforts in the competition.