As the title implies, there are no kangaroos in Austria, but rather, Australia. I didn’t originally believe this is something that people got confused, but on our last day in Europe we took a train to Austria, and I saw merch bearing the phrase, “No Kangaroos in Austria”. I got a good laugh from it…
Tag: Michael Lukasik
Last Day on Program
Today was our last official day of the program because we have a free day tomorrow. There was no firm wake up call, so I slept very well. We went to the University of Augsburg to get ready for our presentations. I think Grob was definitely a cool company and I definitely want to apply…
Neuschwanstein Castle
Today we visited a castle high in the Bavarian Alps. Neuschwanstein castle was built by King Ludwig II as a place to escape to, far away from the stress of the city. Construction began in 1869 but it never really was finished. King Ludwig died in 1886 and his family decided to not sink any…
Regensburg
Today we drove to Regensburg. Regensburg is cool because it wasn’t occupied during World War 2 and therefore wasn’t destroyed. The city is almost entirely original and has lots of old history. It was established in the first century AD, so the buildings and roads were really cool because of their age. We crossed the…
A Solemn Trip to Dachau
Dachau is a Nazi concentration camp located near Munich. It was the longest running concentration camp, established in 1933 and liberated by the allies in April of 1945. The camp, unlike many others, was not intended as a death camp, but rather a forced labor camp for political opponents of Adolf Hitler and the National…
Day 7 in Munich
Today we went to Munich. It felt way different than Augsburg does. Munich is a much more commercial city than Augsburg and is way more crowded. It felt similar to New York city, but without the skyscrapers, and was cleaner. It was very dense with people and places to spend money. There was an FC…
Audi in Ingolstadt
As the title suggests, we visited Audi’s plant in Ingolstadt today. The plant was huge, a few square kilometers, and around 2000 cars a day are produced there. Audi has many locations and over 80,000 employees, but this location only manufactures the Q2, A3, A4, A5, and their corresponding S or RS models. We saw…
Germany Day 5
The white sausage breakfast was a little strange. It was oddly crowded and many people were having beer at 9 in the morning. The place had an intense, unusual smell when you walked in, but you adjusted to it very quickly. The food was good but the experience was very strange. We visited Forvia today…
Grob-al Experiences
Today we toured Grob, and it was the most impressive factory I have ever seen. Grob builds CNC machines for a variety of purposes and has a large market share in several spaces. There was an entire warehouse used only for showing off what the machines can do. The rest of the factory consisted of…
Germany Day 3
Hoerbiger was a very interesting company to me because, while they can do much more, their current business seems to revolve around two things: valves and synchronizer gears. The flow and motion control plant was very interesting because it felt small and friendly, and was a human powered assembly line in a clean room manufacturing…
Day 2 Germany
Today we worked on presentations with the German students and learned about the companies we are visiting. We then took a tour of the University of Augsburg, and then did more exploring in Augsburg. The city feels friendly and small, and it is easy to get comfortable. There’s an impressive amount of old history in…
Germany Day 1
The first thing I noticed about Germany was the geography and terrain as we left the airport. It reminded a lot of rural Pennsylvania, as the highway cut between small farms for miles and miles. However, I immediately knew we weren’t in America because of how smooth and well maintained the roads were. We got…
Plus3 Germany
My name is Michael, and I’m a freshman studying mechanical engineering at Pitt. I chose engineering because I like to know how things work and I have a passion for aviation and racing. Mechanical engineering seemed broad enough to cover most of my interests, so it quickly became a front runner when I was thinking…