Hello, my name is Michael Timm, and I am a freshman at the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering(originally from Allentown, PA), where I have recently declared my major in Industrial Engineering. My journey to the IISE department has been fueled by a lifelong passion for playing optimization-themed video games such as Satisfactory or…
Category: Frederick Honors College
Plus3 Korea – Final Journal
Upon the conclusion of my Plus 3 trip to South Korea, I have reflected on my experiences in Seoul. This trip brought me lifelong experiences through our cultural visits, company visits, and the bonds that I created with my classmates that I will remember forever and helped me gain a more complete perspective on the…
Afloat With Possibilities: Floating Farms of the Netherlands
For the twelfth, and last proper day within the Netherlands, our Plus3 Group went to the world’s first and only Floating Farm. During this visit, we learned about the various products produced by the Floating Farm’s cows. The process revolves around circular design; every piece of produce gets used. One example regards the reuse of…
Final thoughts | Augsburg Reflection
Our time in Augsburg was eventful, to say the least. It is astonishing how quickly people can become friends, when forced to spend almost every day together for two weeks straight. When I came to Germany the first time, my program was spread out over the course of four months, and I still felt like…
Remember your passports kids | Augsburg Day 12
Today was the day built into our schedule for us to conduct our own travel, wherever we could reach in a few hours by train. Myself, Ashlyn, and Kayla decided to travel the 2 and a half hours to Salzburg, Austria. We left for our 8 am train, and realized on the way that Kayla…
Saying good-bye | Augsburg Day 11
Today was the final day of all of us being able to spend time together during the program. We had to present our final projects with our company groups and then we had a farewell dinner with everyone in the program and their groupmates. Our days started out slower than usual, as we didn’t need…
Grow With the Flow: The Natural Irrigation of Rotterdam
For the eleventh day of the Plus3 Netherlands trip, our group toured the city of Rotterdam’s natural infrastructure to understand how urban designers accounted for sustainable flood prevention. Holland heavily emphasizes floodwater control due to the elevation of the Netherlands mostly remaining below sea level causing floods to occur often. As part of the guided…
Tot Straks, Holland
Today was our last day in the Netherlands. I can’t believe how fast time passed, but I’m so grateful to have shared this experience with my fellow students and professors. We started our day at the Floating Farm, which was one of our most anticipated visits of the trip. We attended a brief presentation on…
Final Fantastic Day in the Netherlands: Day 12
Sadly, today was our final full day in the Netherlands, sadly meaning my amazing experience with this trip and trip group is coming to an end. Despite this, today was one of the most rewarding days regarding sustainability topics, with today’s visits to the floating farm and to RDM both producing a litany of interesting…
A Finale of Cattle and Innovation
Today was our last day in the Netherlands. We went to a floating farm, a warehouse of learning and business development, and finally, a nice farewell dinner. After a hotel breakfast and a short water taxi ride there, we toured the Rotterdam floating farm. We first got a short presentation about the farm and its…
A Floating Farm Farewell (5/22)
Day 12, our last day in the Netherlands, was a relaxed ending to our amazing trip. We started our morning with a visit to the Floating Farm. Karel, our guide, explained how the farm was inspired by a floating cities presentation that Minke and Peter, the two founders, went to in New York right around…
Dakakker
5/21/25 Today, we had the pleasure of touring Dakakker, a facility with over 1,000 square meters of green roof space. This space includes a vegetable farm, bee hives, and a chicken coop. This space is extremely sustainable in many ways. To begin, producing local produce and animal product is inherently more sustainable. The roof top…
Ranch & Research
5/22/25 Today, we had the opportunity to tour the floating farm which (as one may guess) is a farm that is floating on the water. As with any farm, the floating farm had to consider a path to make themselves a sustainable place. One stride they make towards sustainability is utilizing food that would otherwise…
See you next time Netherlands! Day 12 in Rotterdam
Today we had our last day in Rotterdam, and more importantly The Netherlands, before leaving tomorrow morning. We started out by visiting a floating farm that was founded in order to find a better solution to feeding the community while combatting climate change. Extreme temperatures and rain events are becoming more common, which makes farming…
05/22 – Floating Farm & RDM Rotterdam
Today was a really nice way to wrap up our trip–we toured the Floating Farm, which was the company I presented on during our pre-departure meetings, so I was excited to see it in person, and we also toured RDM Rotterdam. These visits were both very informational and inspiring to see the plethora of ways…
One Last Day (Day 12)
All good things must come to an end, and this stood true on Day 12–our last day in the Netherlands before departing back to Pittsburgh. Today was a day filled with lessons on sustainability, but also a bittersweet goodbye to this experience that I have cherished. In the morning, we visited the Rotterdam Floating Farm,…
When Pigs (Cows) Fly (Float)
It’s so sad that today was the last day in the Netherlands. It’s very unfortunate that this journey has already came to an end. It felt like just yesterday when we landed in Amsterdam on no sleep doing many activities. We started this morning with Floating Farm, a farm created to lower carbon emissions by…
Coming Full Circle
We had a late start today, so I escaped the hotel breakfast in exchange for some local bagels. Afterwards, we headed to the tram station to visit a floating farm. This farm is located about 10 minutes from central Rotterdam. It is home to a herd of 26 cows, who live on a structure floating…
My Final Day of Sightsneezing
It’s day 12, and our trip is sadly coming to a close! Unfortunately I’ve had a bit of a cold for the past couple of days, hence the title. We had a late start today and headed out around 10 AM to take a tram to Merwehaven, a port in Rotterdam by the river Maas….
Goodbye Netherlands!
Today was our final day in Rotterdam and of our Netherlands Plus 3 adventure! For our last day, we started off the day by visiting Floating Farms and their floating cow and vegetable farms in one of Rotterdam’s port harbors. We learned about how Floating Farm, a volunteer-run group funded by private environmental investors, is…