Arrival
After weeks of preparation, we began our trip to the Munich airport in the early morning hours. By the time we arrived there our excitement and anticipation had increased enormously for the 10-hour-flight increased heavily. On our stopover in Atlanta we realized that we had missed our connecting flight because of problems at the security-check. Thankfully the problem was known at the airport and so the friendly staff gave us new tickets for the following flight. As if our journey into the new temporary home had not been enough problematic, a big thunderstorm brought us two hours more of waiting for the take-off in Atlanta to Chicago, Illinois. After 27 hours of travelling and arriving in Rockford, our new home-town, we were cordially received by the other interns and we were taken to our new home.
Work
The company where we did our internship is called AME (Advanced Machine & Engineering). They produce mostly carbide saws, but also machines and systems. So dreams of mechanical engineers become true there. Our career at AME started in the workshop. Our first job was to disassemble an old fixture, what had become much more difficult and exhausting than anticipated. After this project Martin started his work on a blade-box, a transportation-box for carbide saw blades, which was ready for production after 9 different attempts. Meanwhile he had to do some extra jobs, like making production drawings, constructing a gage-tool and programming CAD-machines. Johannes had to register dimensions of clamping bushings into a table in the beginning. Next he had to handle three different projects at the same time. First he had to create and to detail a concept for a saw blade-stabilizer. On the second project it was his job to make production drawings of the wear parts for the previously disassembled fixture, to purchase the missing components and to estimate the cost. The third job was to build up a prototype for a polishing-machine together with other interns. Afterwards he designed a concept for a 4-axis rail-drilling-machine and he had to model housings for circular pumps.
Leisure timeOur apartment was located next to the company. Seven interns shared the place. It was never boring in our leisure time and at the weekends. We made a lot of one-day-trips to big cities and visited museums, we often went to the cinema, went out for dinner and each time we had many people around us. Certainly we were responsible for the housework too, but that was not the problem for big men like us. We have visited many Cities, inter alia Chicago, Milwaukee, Indianapolis and St. Louis. All in all we were 12 interns and we got along very well with each other. There were also four interns from the HTL Steyr at the same time as we were. Soon we could call them our friends and we spent a lot of time together and made most trips with them. The head of the company, Willy Goellner, and his wife Irmgard looked very well after us, and we appreciated this very much.
Completing journey and departure
After having successfully completed our work at AME, we lined up for our flight from Milwaukee to Washington D.C. The capital city of the United States of America is beautiful and worth living. On one day we wanted to enjoy the view of Washington D.C. from the 170 m high Washington Monument, but this adventure was refused by an earthquake with an intensity of 5,8. After we had seen and enjoyed the capital city of the U.S.to the full, we took the bus to New York City, where we stayed for another five days. There the hurricane Irene blew down our neck, and so we spent one and a half days just in the hotel because the subway was closed down the first time in history. Apart from that, New York is just a breath-taking and impressing, inspiring and lively City, you experience there what you know from the films. We have of course visited all famous sights as we had already done in Washington D.C. After the fact, that New York had taken all our breath away, we flew back to Chicago, 45 minutes later, we were on a 7 hour flight to Amsterdam and finally arrived at Munich.
Acknowledgements and ResumeWe�d like to sincerely thank all people involved who had made this summer an unforgettable one and we find it great that we were allowed to experience it. Especial, we have to mention DI Gernot Weissensteiner, AME-head Willy Goellner, and also the Verein der Freunde der HTL and the partner-organisation FSTS. If we had the chance for this great experience another time, we would gladly accept it again. Thank You! Some more impressions�
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