Blog Post #3: BMW Museum

Of the last few places we have visited, I really enjoyed the BMW museum. By no stretch would I call myself a "car" person, so I was surprised how much I liked this site. I never knew that BMW started making plane engines. But I was also suprised that the government prohibited BMW from making aircraft engines after WWI and all engines after WWII. I never realized that governments could stop a company from producing product all together. I also found it fascinating that they decided to make pots after WWII. I never suspected BMW, a well known car company, would making kitchen supplies. Looking back, I suppose they were in a hard place and wanted to keep their employees and give them some sort of work and making pots was a viable option. In general, I thought it was interesting to see the overall evolution of the BMW-- from making aircraft engines to making futuristic cars with skin. My favorite part was seeing the "vision" cars. I think that the vision cars are an important part of the engineering process. It's important for engineering to express their creativity in an unrestricted fashion. Sometimes the engineering environment can put employees into a standard way of thinking and making a certain product. However, this can be a dangerous place. It's important to not stifle creativity and I believe BMW is encouraging thinking out of the box.