Today began early again, seven o’clock, just like yesterday. This time it was for the Siemens excursion. In the van we had a little disappointment, Marcella had partied quite hard yesterday and lost her singer voice. So we couldn’t hear her beautiful singing…
At Siemens we started with a presentation about the history of the plant. The factory was built in 1913 as a brick machines company. An interesting aspect was that the plant was nationalized in 1947 and privatized in 1990. Then in 1997 Siemens bought it. Nowadays the company produces large electric motors and generators, everything from 1 to 25 MW. The excursion ended with a factory tour, where we saw how a lot of handwork was needed to first make and bend the coils, then to wrap them with tape and finally to place the coils in of the motors and generators. Next to this we saw how iron was punched and stacked to make laminated iron cores.
As a second surprise from the committee we went paintballing this afternoon. In a two floor hall we had to capture the flag of the other team. A lot of shots were fired, but no one got colored by paint, because the balls were made from rubber. Only one contestant truly painted the walls and floors, only with his own red “paint” because he fell.
After he was fixed at the local hospital we went to Brno city where by pure coincidence we arrived at the same restaurant as yesterday and had a delicious dinner. Brno is a student city so we searched for the best pub to finish the evening. A few famous pints later many people went to bed. Only a few of us were still thirsty for adventure and with the help of locals a club was found were the evening was really closed.
By Jeroen and Steven