Flying Road University at the Silesian University of Technology
Education, research, and integration – these are the most important assumptions of the Flying Road University initiative. Representatives of six technical universities take part in workshops on road technologies at the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Silesian University of Technology.
Flying Road University is a project initiated in 2018 by the Białystok University of Technology, Lublin University of Technology and Orlen Asfalt, the aim of which is to exchange experiences between students and practitioners in the field of road construction. The name refers to the historical Flying University, an informal higher school for women during the partitions, which had no seat and changed the place of lectures. Flying Road University meets for the eighth time this time at the Silesian University of Technology.
- The road worker connects people because he connects cities, it will be the main task of your entire professional life, - said Dr Eng. Marta Wasilewska, from Białystok University of Technology, one of the initiators of the Flying Road University. - We want to educate you, but above all to integrate you, you will not be able to manage in this industry by yourself, - she added.
The Flying Road University project consists in organizing workshops focusing on the practical education of road engineering students.
- Road engineering is not only about paving, but also about traffic engineering, design, and many other issues. It’s a teamwork, no one builds the road alone. Each of the academic centres specializes in something and thanks to the fact that we have such cooperation, we can exchange experiences and knowledge - said Dr Hab. Eng. Janusz Bohatkiewicz, Director of the Roads and Bridges Research Institute, also one of the initiators of Flying Road University.
The participants of the two-day meeting are students and lecturers from six cooperating universities: Białystok, Gdańsk, Lublin, Cracow, Rzeszów and Silesia Universities of Technology.
- Universities and our main sponsor, Orlen Asfalt, are preparing workshops for students, which are attended by groups composed of representatives of each of the six universities of the Flying Road University, which is why earlier students take part in an integration game to get to know each other better,- explained Dr Eng. Bartłomiej Grzesik from the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Silesian University of Technology. – This year our University has prepared a workshop devoted to the use of drones in the inventory of the road lane – he added.
The course covers all issues related to road engineering. These include workshops on the study of softening temperature and penetration of various types of asphalt and the assessment of their parameters, technologies for repair and maintenance of road surfaces, as well as laboratory tests devoted to the polishing of aggregate and asphalt adhesion. Students have a chance to gain practical knowledge and establish relationships that may turn into research cooperation in the future.
photo.: Jan Szady
