On Sunday evening, the meeting started with a welcome dinner at Hotel Graf right in the center of Sankt Pölten. Most of us had "Wiener Schnitzel", a typical specialty of Lower Austria. It was exciting to see all the European friends again and to discuss the challenges and solutions for our Penny Press face to face.
In the following days, we spent a lot of time in the workshops at school. Before that we had a school tour through the HTL Sankt Pölten. The building is fascinating - everything is new, there is modern equipment, and the rooms are large and stylish.
Some students decided to focus on the electronic parts of our Penny Press and with the help and support of the teachers in Austria, we produced our own circuit boards. Some of us had never done that before and so it was very interesting but also challenging, but the two teachers from the electronic department did a great job! Thank you!
Some other students spent a lot of time in the mechanical department where some missing parts of the machine were prepared at the milling and the turning machines. Again, the Austrian teachers in the workshops supported us and helped us whenever we had problems.
In a different room, the "Penny Press Machine" was assembled and tested. Sometimes, it was a mechanical problem, sometimes electronics did not work the way they should, but by testing and improving the different parts of the machine, things became better and better.
On our cultural day, we went to Vienna, the capital of Austria, where we spent the morning in the technical museum. There, not only huge machines such as locos or planes are shown, but also a lot of well known industrial and mechanical inventions are explained.
In the afternoon, we had a guided tour through Vienna, a very beautiful and old city. Although it was a rainy and windy day, this tour was very impressive. For dinner we finally went to the famous "Prater" and then returned back home in the evening by bus.
On the final day of our meeting, we discussed the next steps and some homework which was supposed to be done by the time of our last meeting in Germany.
For many of us this was the first time in Austria. Thank you for the perfect time in school, the interesting day in Vienna and the tasty food in Sankt Pölten at the final farewell dinner!
