5/13

Today we got up around 10 am and headed to Munich.  While in Munich we saw the BMW headquarters, BMW museum , and BMW World. The BMW museum was fascinating because when I think of BMW I tend to think of high end cars, but the company actually began by making airplanes. The museum does a great job highlighting BMW's emphasis on performance vehicles and performance engines in particular. Throughout the museum there are numerous race-track cars and race motorcycles that have all won trophies. BMW world was neat because I could see all the models BMW has to offer currently including some really high end cars like the new I8, Rolls-Royce, and M3. I enjoyed seeing the I8 up close due to how impressive the design of the car is. Not only is the i8 an electric car but it also performs as if it were a Lamborghini or Ferrari. After the museum and BMW World, we began our tour of the factory as a group. The factory was truly incredible to see. Everything is made by robots with the exception of the engines.  What was even cooler is that the majority of the robots are KUKA robots, one of the companies we visited earlier in the week. The production line is essentially all automated. Start to finish the tour took a little over an hour; during that time we saw a piece of scrap metal become a vehicle ready to be driven off the lot. BMW's production line is state of the art. One example of this is in the painting section of the process. BMW has running water beneath the cars so they never waste a single drop of paint because they can separate it from the water and reuse it.  After getting back we all hung out for a bit and then a group of us went out to dinner. At dinner I had a delicious Italian pasta dish called cannelloni.  After dinner a few of us went and played cards at a small cafe.