My amazing week at BMW

This past summer I had an amazing opportunity to spend a week of praktikum (German word for internship) at BMW in Munich.

One day my dad asked me to define learning, what does learning mean to me.  And without thinking I said learning is training.  We learn something by training for it.  And the best way to learn is by getting our "hands dirty", meaning by being hands-on, not rote learning.  In Germany this way of learning is very popular and widespread.  Even the word praktikum means being practical, i.e. learning by working in a real environment, under supervision of experts.  I had a great time learning and working at the BMW factory in Munich during this memorable week.

Day 1.

I woke up on the morning of July 25 very happy and excited that I was going to the BMW factory and actually was going to work there!  My friend Ben was going to accompany me the entire week.  We arrived at the BMW plant promptly at 730am and Frau Obermaier, our host from BMW, took us inside the factory.  I went straight to the factory tour to see how they made the cars; I saw the Press Shop, Frame and Body Shop, Paint Shop, and Assembly Shop.  The praktikum concept lets students like me get hands-on training on important jobs.  My first taste of the hands-on "praktikum" was really fun and interesting: I sat in a brand new White BMW 320d-XDrive which was going to be tested indoors on roller blades!  We sat in the car and a test driver drove the car at 150kmph (94 miles per hour!) on the roller blades!  It was an amazing experience.  Overall I got to see some amazing things upclose, like robots making the cars and taking cars through various checkpoints on the assembly process, watching the cars getting painted, etc.  I met some great BMW production people like Mr. Lohner, Mr. Rott, Christoph Seger, Reinhard, Slobo, Johann, and Mr. Knödl, Mr. Klose, Mr. Bauer, and Martin from the workshop.

Here are the notes from my Day 1 that I took with Ben at the end of the first day.  Half the notes are in English and the rest in German.

A highlight of today was the Factory Tour.  First came the Assembly Line with Ben and Michael Lohner. Before that Ben and I saw different kinds of all the BMW Stations. I saw how people scan the camera and do the checkpoints on what needs to be done. Then came the Roller bladder testing by inside the brand new BMW 320d-XDrive.  This was a highlight of my entire week!  I sat in the front seat of the car and Ben and Michael both sat in the back. It was amazing to go superfast without actually moving!  Then came the Press Shop, Frame and Body Shop, and Paint Shop with Ben and Eduard Rott. Over there I saw how the robots produced the BMW cars and especially how they were pressed in those different machines. I also saw how they painted the BMW cars such as putting it in water so that the robots can do better painting with the BMW cars. We took breaks for lunch and snacks/drinks.  Overall there was a wonderful, warm, friendly, family-like atmosphere in the factory.  The first day of my BMW Internship was awesome!

Day 2.


Here are the notes from Day 2, in English and German, that I took with Ben at the end of the second day.  The highlight of this day was seeing the brand new M4 GTS Coupe.  What a rocket ship!  Some day I want to get this amazing car!

Day 3.


Here are the notes from Day 3 that I took with Ben at the end of my third day. All of them are in English.  A highlight of Day 3 were definitely the test drive of the M4 GTS, which made it to 60MPH in just 3.7 seconds!! Another highlight was to see the special designs of the BMW police cars for the German and Swiss police forces.  We also got to see the engine production and the axle production and how the engine gets connected to the car and the axle gets connected to the engine.  These are two really important parts of a car.  The third highlight was to go to the BMW Museum and to see the old and new BMWs.  The third day of my praktikum was very exciting and interesting.

Day 4.


Here are the notes from Day 4 that I took with Ben at the end of my fourth day. One is in English and the other is in German.

The highlight of this day was working at the BMW Workshop with Ben, Wolfgang, Bernhard, and Martin. First, me, Ben, Wolfgang, Bernhard, and Martin made a paperweight which was made out of Aluminum and then we started to make a heavy BMW cube. I got a real taste of working with heavy machines and with real metal, and also how BMW workers plan their projects.  Awesome!

Day 5.


Here are the notes I took from the Day 5 that I took with Ben at the end of my last day. Again one is in English and the other is in German.

It is Day 5, already the last day of my praktikum!  Today I finished my work at the BMW Workshop with Ben, Wolfgang, Bernhard, and Martin. Over there, we finished building the Heavy BMW Cube, a great memory of my BMW Internship. After that, I got a BMW Internship Certificate which said that I completed the BMW Internship successfully.  That was it!  My memorable week of praktikum was all done.

My BMW Internship was a really awesome, rewarding and fun experience.  I learnt a lot about what it is like to work at this amazing place, with the amazing people of BMW.  I am really thankful to everyone that I worked with, especially Ben, Mrs Obermayer, and Mr Lohner.  I am also thankful to Mr Ebner and all the great people at BMW who helped me learn all about what it takes to make these BMWs.  I cannot wait until I am older so I can work at BMW!

Nitrogen

NITROGEN: MY FAVORITE ELEMENT

                            This is my drawing of Nitrogen!

 

BACKGROUND

Nitrogen was discovered by a Scottish physician named Daniel Rutherford in 1772.

Daniel Rutherford called it Noxious Air. He performed a simple experiment with an empty bottle that he turned upside down in a pan of water, so that the air was trapped. A burning candle was placed inside the bottle with the trapped air, causing the water to rise a bit. The part of the air that seemed to “disappear” when the candle was burned was oxygen gas, and the part of the air that did not disappear was the nitrogen.

Rutherford found that the new gas was different from carbon dioxide and that it didn’t support life.  In 1790 the chemist Jean-Antoine Chaptal suggested the Latin term “nitrogenium” from the Greek nitron. In the 19th century, nitrogen was assigned the N letter.

WHERE NITROGEN IS FOUND

Nitrogen gas makes up 78.1% of the Earth’s air. The atmosphere of Mars, by comparison, is only 2.6% nitrogen. Nitrogen gas can be obtained by liquefaction and fractional distillation. Nitrogen is found in all living systems as part of the makeup of biological compounds.  

PROPERTIES OF NITROGEN

Here is a table to quickly see all of the important properties of Nitrogen:

Property	Properties of Nitrogen
Atomic Mass	14.007 amu
Atomic Number	7
Boiling Point	-195.8 C
Melting Point	-210 C
Atomic Symbol	N
State at Room Temperature	Gas
Acid or Base Reactivity	None
Density	1035 kgm^-3
Color	Colorless

A RESUME FOR THE FABULOUS NITROGEN:
Nitrogen is everywhere! We see it in our atmosphere and in living things. We use it to preserve historical documents so that they don't get ruined over time. It is also used in fertilizer to help crops grow. In addition, Nitrogen is used in storage to keep packaged or bulk foods fresh. It can also be used in hospitals to store blood until needed for operation. Doctors can use it to remove tatoos, warts, birthmarks, and skin cancers as well. Nitrogen is found in lightbulbs, and the importance of this can be seen in the following, very cool video!

Nitrogen can also be used in making ice cream!!! The following video shows how this is done:

In San Francisco, there is an ice cream shop called Smitten Ice Cream, where they do exactly this! These are some pictures of them making individual ice cream scoops for people.

                                             


They have these ice cream machines on the counter for you to watch!
                             

This is the liquid nitrogen being used to freeze the ice cream!

WHAT IF THERE WAS NO NITROGEN?!
Barely anything, if anything, would exist!

WHY I PICKED THIS TOPIC:
I picked this topic because a lot of people don't know about nitrogen, but it's my favorite element. It is used in a lot of things, that people never think. Only some of these are in my blog, but there are a lot more uses for nitrogen!