Alright, yes I know that I have been a bit behind on my blogging lately, but we have been SO busy that trying to squeeze in time to blog has been a struggle! But this post is going to be about our day this past Thursday. It was a really fun day!! We started off the morning by of course having breakfast here at the hostel and then proceeded to take the tram and a ferry over to our first company for the day, Hasselblad. This company was founded in 1842 by Fritz Victor Hasselblad, and they are a camera manufacturing company, similar to Nikon or Sony, except their cameras are a lot more exquisite and more of a professional grade intended for professional uses. We met with Ove, who has been a product manager for Hasselblad since 1982, and he taught us all about the history of the company, the cameras they make, and some of the cool things that they have been used for. For example, in 1957, the 500c model was one of the most iconic cameras ever made for that time, so Nasa wanted Hasselblad to put a team together to design a camera for space. Long story short, the first pictures from the moon taken by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were from a Hasselblad camera. In fact, there are still several Hasselblad cameras up on the moon today. Pretty cool if you ask me! After the presentation we even got the chance to hold and try out some of their incredible cameras, and we got to see what their small factory looks like where all of their cameras are hand-made. They said that depending on the camera, it can take up to 6-8 hours for one camera to be made! It was such an interesting company to learn more about, and below are some pictures from the visit that morning!
After that, we took a pretty long bus ride over to the company ABB Robotics, which is where our professor used to work at! When we got there, we had lunch in the cafeteria, and in Sweden it is a tradition that on Thursday’s you have either pea or fish soup and crepes, but I passed on the soup and had pork and crepes instead!
After lunch, we had a presentation from one of our professor’s friends who is a current employee at ABB, Bert. We learned all about the current technology of today, and about the upcoming technology of the future. We also learned about how robotics make for much more efficient and high-tech production in many factories. However, the key take away is that the smart way of doing automation is a mix of humans and robots. Robots can’t work like humans, and humans can’t work like robots. Therefore, their jobs/tasks should not be overlapped. And when you think of it this way, theoretically, robots should not negatively effect or displace the job market. We also talked about artificial intelligence and some of the crazy things that can be done with it that are already happening in some foreign countries today!
After leaving ABB, the real fun of the day started! We went back to the hostel to change and then met up with our friends Morgan and Sylvia from Volvo again to get some Chinese food before heading over to the hockey game! It was really yummy and at a fun and authentic Chinese restaurant just a short walk from the hockey stadium.
After our dinner, we walked over to the Scandinavium hockey stadium and found our seats for the hockey game! We sat in row 4 so we had awesome seats, and let me tell you, this experience was incredible!! I loved it so much I cannot say enough good things about it! The team is called Frölunda, and it is a really fast and high-scoring game. The final score of the game was 8-4, and Frölunda got the win! What was so fun also was that we sat right next to the “fan section”, where it is jam packed with people who are die hard Frölunda fans and go absolutely NUTS during the game and it was so fun to hear all of their cheers and everything! I definitely want to go to a Blackhawks game now!
Things I learned today:
- I love watching European hockey
- The McDonald’s here are way better and cheaper than USA McDonald’s
- I am getting ready to be back home
- I love the food here so much
- I kind of want to get into photography, I think it would be kinda fun!
Alright that is all, goodnight from Göteborg!
Nicole's Adventures in Sweden 