A week is gone, a week left. In a sense, this week will be much more eventful than last week. We have our final project presentation Wednesday, my birthday is also Wednesday, we have farewell dinner Thursday, and of course a free day on Friday where I and a couple of my friends will go to Salzburg, Austria for a day trip.
In the morning, we went to the University to hear S. Gebler, a professor from the philosophy sector of the university, to talk about current and recent Bavaria and Germany politics. It was very informative, some of them Dr. Feick already taught us in the classes during the semester, such as the two different houses and the difference between president and chancellor. He mentioned that in recent years more and more new parties are emerging and taking votes from major parties, especially CDU. He made several comparisons of German Politics and U.S politics, they are pretty similar in most cases, just that the political parties in Germany are more specific and detailed compared to the U.S. Also, it is only the battle between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S, while in Germany there are way more parties in the race and coalitions happening.
The second time having lunch at the cafeteria in the University of Augsburg is just as amazing as the first time. I don’t need to say anything anymore, just flip back to Day 2 to read my reflection on the cafeteria food.
After lunch, we took a trolley to our fourth site visit this trip – KUKA. KUKA is a company that develops robotic technologies mainly for the supply chain companies. However, they are innovating into the medical industry and possibly developing technology that people can use in daily life, which allows them to have direct interaction with the consumers. The first part of the tour was awesome. We were brought into a showcase room, there were timelines of the company, a video of their company introduction and vision, and some technologies and robots KUKA developed. It was a really cool experience, my view on KUKA as a company completely changed after that. Then something happened. So, after the presenter showed us a robot, I touched it just out of curiosity as she was walking away. I pulled my hand away afterward and other people came over and did the same. However, just when I reached out my hand to lightly touch it the second time. The light of the whole showcase room turned on and the robot turned red started making an alarm sound. Everyone else around it backed up other than me. Thus, I became the one that touched the robot and “turned down the system.” For the rest of the day, this became the hot topic, I didn’t say much because I did touch the robot. But later we found out several others were there touching the robot and just as responsible, Alan said: “I like how Jeremy was the one that got pointed at the whole afternoon when he’s not the only one.” Whatever, I did touch the robot, I was at fault, it is what it is.
We had a factory tour and a long presentation after we left the showcase room. In conclusion, it was interesting to learn more about KUKA, and according to what we saw and heard, I believe KUKA has a really bright future and lots of room to innovate and become one of the world leading robotics company.
