On Sunday, 1st May 2022, the five delegations arrived in Croatia to start the third project meeting in the “First School of Technical Sciences Tesla” in the country’s capital Zagreb. The first evening was giving all of us an opportunity to get settled and to have dinner together before starting work on our wagons again the next day.
Our first full day in Zagreb started with a very nice breakfast in the hotel before meeting in front of the hotel to start the half hour walk to the school. The weather in May in Zagreb was quite nice so it was beautiful to enjoy the sunbeams and the atmosphere. After arriving we got a warm welcome from our hosts as well as a presentation that gave us an insight into the country, the city and school. Afterwards we started working in workline A for two hours, dealing with the technical tasks in the project and then having lunch, a delicious meal made from potatoes, beef and fresh salad. This was followed up by a guided school tour in which we got to see the classrooms and workshops. We also got told some of the school´s history and the person it was named after: Nikola Tesla.
Afterwards we continued our work in the work line B and presented them to our classmates. It seemed like the work pace had picked up as everyone had a genuine idea of what the plan was and which problems required solutions. We stopped working at around 4:30 pm to receive a tour of Zagreb. There we saw the historic upper and lower towns, the historic Stone Gate, the Cathedral of Zagreb, the “Museum of broken Relationships” and received a lot of interesting facts and information about the history of this beautiful city. After the tour it was time to get individual dinners. Luckily we were already in the city center so everyone could easily find one restaurant or another to get something to eat and then individually travel back to the “Hotel International” to get a good night’s rest before the next day of hard work.
The next day started just like the last one did and after arriving at the school we began the day with a good morning flashlight at 9 am to start off the day and make sure we were all on the same page about the previous day. Afterwards we went into the work line C and work line D before preparing for a visit to the Rimac Factory in the afternoon. Rimac is a luxury supercar producing company that works on battery powered motors. They showed us around their current production facility and even though it had just been finished they let us know that they were already outgrowing the building. It was very interesting to see how such impressive cars are being developed and produced. After the tour we got back on the bus and drove to visit the Grgosova spilja cave, an impressive stalactite cave that has built over thousands of years. The almost 100 meters long cave was quite breathtaking in its beauty. Near the cave is a restaurant where we went for dinner after our exploration and then the bus took us all back to the hotel.
Our final day started with groupwork sessions in the morning when we took our time to have a review and an outlook on what would have to be done as homework. We discussed all the process we made on the days before and what needed to happen at home so that the next project meeting in Ireland could again be a success. At the end of this meeting we all came to the conclusion to reorganize the meeting and work structure and to reduce the number of worklines from four to two and to reorganize the workgroups as well. This in conclusion again meant that in the coming meeting it would be easier and very clear what to focus on. We then assigned ourselves homework in the new two work line groups and departed from school to meet again at the farewell dinner that was held at the hotel.
All in all, it was a very successful project meeting. Much was accomplished, just as much was still to be done and after travelling back home, we all had the time to adequately prepare to meet again in September 2022 in Dublin, Ireland. We all would like to thank everyone involved in the planning and performance of the meeting. Thanks to the Croatian team for the support, the friendly atmosphere and for making this meeting as wonderful and memorable as it was.
Text written by
Doris Kormassah, Benjamin Veldhoen, Jana Kern