Eliška Paulíková Wins Second Place in the Werner von Siemens Awards

We are very proud to share that Ing. Eliška Paulíková, who completed both her bachelor’s and master’s research in the Droplet Laboratory, has received 2nd place in the 2025 Werner von Siemens Awards in the category of Master’s theses on Industry 4.0. She was recognized for her thesis Automation of Laboratory Work: Modernization and Extension of Pipetting Robot Functions for Handling Small Objects.

Eliška studied Sensorics and Cybernetics at the Department of Mathematics, Informatics and Cybernetics at the University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague. Her master’s thesis was carried out in our Droplet Laboratory at the Department of Chemical Engineering and supervised by Jitka Čejková with Tomáš Jirsa serving as consultant. Having worked with Eliška for several years, we had the privilege to watch her grow from a bachelor’s student into a talented and creative young engineer.

In her thesis, Eliška worked on the automation of laboratory tasks using robotics. She took the EvoBot, a pipetting robot originally developed by Kasper Støy and Andres Faina at IT University of Copenhagen, and significantly extended its capabilities. Eliška designed and built a custom 3D-printed module that allows the robot not only to pipette liquids but also to autonomously manipulate small objects. She also developed software improvements including QR-code-based coordinate detection and a Python-based user interface for controlling the system. The result is a flexible experimental platform that can support future automated laboratory experiments. We are also grateful to Kasper Støy and Andres Faina for their support and consultations during the project and for developing the original EvoBot platform on which Eliška’s work builds.

The Werner von Siemens Awards are among the most prestigious awards for students and young researchers in the Czech Republic, recognizing outstanding master’s and doctoral theses as well as important achievements in both basic and applied research.

Eliška defended her master’s thesis and completed her final state exams in our group in May. Since the summer, she has moved to the commercial sector and now works as a Junior Project Engineer at SIDAT, where she contributes to projects in industrial automation. She tells us she is enthusiastic about her new role and enjoys applying what she learned during her studies.

During her time in our lab, Eliška impressed us with her talent, creativity, and dedication. She participated three times in the Student Scientific Conference, winning first place once and second place twice, and received the Best Poster Award at SSCHE 2023.

We are incredibly proud of Eliška and we truly miss having her in the lab. It was a joy to work with her, and we wish her all the best in this new chapter of her career.