Day 9 was finally the Audi presentation day. Audi is the company I’m doing a presentation on and we got to learn about the production development. This company was a little bit different than the other companies because the other companies were Tier 1 and Tier 2 type companies, and Audi produces the final car. I’m glad we toured Audi last because it connected the pieces of each company, previously we learned that each company produces specific parts like chips or pieces to shift gears and Audi uses these pieces to assemble the full car. I absolutely loved the factory tour. We watched the metal get pressed. We watched the body shop and the paint shop, and we learned that the frames of the cars are held up by robots and fully dipped in paint which was an extremely surreal experience. Standing in the shop, there were robots carrying cars over our heads and we got to watch the full production from a sheet of metal to a fully functioning car driving off of the conveyor belt. We also got to visit the Audi museum, where we saw the timeline of Audi cars from the very beginning to the most recent car, although all the descriptions were in German, it was still very cool to look at each car and watch how they design each car.  We also got to walk through the factory with the German students in our group and it was nice to see them again to continue working on our project and to talk to them in person.

We got a quick lunch at the cafeteria and went back to Augsburg to listen to a guest speaker. There was a bit of traffic so we were a little bit late but the person we talked to knew almost everything about the industry and it was very cool to talk to a person knowledgeable on the topic.

We wrapped up the academic parts of the day and went back to the hotel and got some dinner at a place called picnic which was so cute. I got a Cajun chicken bowl with lots of vegetables which I think was needed and it was delicious. We’ve been hanging out in groups of students for so long so it was nice to have a calm night and talk to some different people. After, we went back to our hotel, hung out and tried some new food from the grocery store.

Overall, I loved this day. It was possibly one of my favorite days so far. It was definitely my favorite company visit and I tried to take as many pictures as I could, and I wish we could get a more in depth breakdown and spend more time at the factory, but it was a really fun day and I’m so happy we were lucky enough to experience this.