This morning we traveled to Munich! We took the ICE (inter city express), to get there, which actually was a slightly slower speed than I expected. The train chugged along at around 40-60 km/hr in the cities, but for long stretches of land was probably traveling around 120km/he. Once we arrived, we spent the day visiting both the BMW museum and factory. The BMW factory definitely felt the largest to me, but that is probably because we got to see the most there. We were taken through the body shop, paint shop, and assembly line, and we got to see more transitional steps than at the other two manufacturers. The paint shop was the most technologically interesting part to me. Not only does BMW collect the paint that misses the car, they also give the car and the paint opposite electrical charges so that the paint is attracted to the car as the robot sprays it, to minimize the amount of paint that must be recycled. To end the day, we had a wonderful meal at the Augustiner, one of the most famous historical beer halls in Germany.
3/14 – Ryan Feller
