Today we had a really interesting day and tour in Augsburg.  We started off the day getting breakfast at Zünftiges Weißwurstfrühstück in Baindlkirch, where we ate traditional weisswurst, pretzels, and sweet mustard.  It was actually really good, which surprised me, because I thought it would feel weird to eat that so early in the morning. It was interesting to find out more about the tradition, as we got to talk to the owner of the place and see how the weisswurst are made.  For example, we learned that it is tradition that people eat their weisswurst before noon.  What I also found interesting was the variance in people that follow the old Bavarian traditions.  For example, the restaurant was packed when were there and was obviously a very popular place, but it was mostly an older crowd who spoke in a very heavy Bavarian dialect.  However, when we were talking with the university students who came with us to the breakfast, many of them had rarely eaten the food and said it was mostly for special occasions.

After breakfast, we went on a company visit to KUKA. This was by far the most interesting visit so far.  The first thing we did at the company was the “Brand Experience” where we learned about the company’s history, watched a light show projected onto big blocks moved by robots, and got to play with some cool gadgets to learn more about the company.  We then toured their factory, where we got to see robots building the other robots, and it was a really interesting experience.  The presenter after the tour was a young adult who worked in the innovation of new robots, and  did research how to make them smarter by learning from stored data automatically.  His job was fascinating, as I did not expect there to be such innovation and forward thinking in a company so early along in the automotive industry supply chain.  Without a doubt, my expectations to see cool robots were surpassed, and I’m looking forward to the second to last company tour tomorrow!