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“It’s a multi-floor, highly automated car manufacturing pipeline,” Ian Horch ’27 says about the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg. “As a robotics major, I was drooling over the speed and control the robots demonstrated.”

Photographs Courtesy of sites.lafayette.edu/engineers-in-bonn

Center of immersion

Prof. Art Kney takes one more memorable trip with student engineers.

By Katlyn Clarke

Every spring, second-year engineers at Lafayette have an opportunity to attend a faculty-led study abroad program, “Cities: An Introduction to the Civil Engineering Systems that Make Cities Work,” typically in either Madrid, Spain, or Bonn, Germany.

Before he retired in May, Arthur Kney, professor of civil and environmental engineering, led 25 students to Bonn for the semester. “Although the classes are rigorous, the trips provide freedom to explore independently,” says Kney (pictured above, middle row), who has hosted numerous travel experiences over the years. Documenting their time, students blogged at sites.lafayette.edu/engineers-in-bonn, which serves as an archive for all they learned.

Here is a sampling of what they had to say.

Jack Gallant ’27 wrote about how the preservation of Beethoven’s house in Bonn has a positive impact on the local economy, urban development, and academic community.
Mechanical engineering student Champe Mitchell ’27 sketched his own design of the 17th century Black Forest cuckoo clocks, highlighting the “interesting intersection between technology and art.”
Plant enthusiast Maya Maynard ’27 (center) explored five different botanical gardens while abroad, like this one in Munich, as well as in Bonn on her birthday.
Riding the Deutsche Bahn InterCity Express, the high-speed railway connecting major cities in Germany, was its own engineering experience.
Sam Owens ’27 saw a performance inside Hamburg’s modern glass concert hall, built on top of a historic warehouse.
Bram Halpert ’27 and Andrew Manni ’27 admired the infrastructure necessary for a Champions League match from the design of the stadium to its proximity to a train station.
Students observed Germany’s green engineering practices, like permeable surfaces that naturally help control stormwater runoff.

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