Hi everyone... This morning I woke up ready to work though the challenges ahead. The weather this morning was wonderful. This is was our second day of programming with Daniel who is a software programmer at Zap company and is a very good mentor. Today we were working on a programme called XAMPP which is used to host or run websites. Daniel explains in simple steps what HTML and PHP are, and how they work. This information was all new to me and this was quite challenging at first. He set us the task to make a simple website, saying 'Hello World', in order to put our knowledge into practice.
When Lunch came around we went to canteen and ate some lovely food that the staff prepared for us. Afterwards, we went on to a website called 'W3Schools', where we downloaded a template for our website. From there we edited the content and put in features like, images, text and links before we successfully completed the challenge. After we finished work we went to the city centre for a good bit to explore a little further, because the weather was so lovely outside and it felt like a real summers day. On reflection of the day, I realised that I had a very good experience with building the website and learning about what happened behind the scenes and putting my own skills to good use. Tomorrow will probably be the best day for me as we will be learning about game development. This is an area that i'm really interested in and is an area that I would like to get more involved in going forward. I'm looking forward to starting bright and early and can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring. -Michael
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Hello from Poland. Today we started our week of programming with Daniel. He is a programmer with Zap. We started off the day with a survey assessing our knowledge of programming languages and at the end they asked us what we would like to learn for the week. We then tried to connect all of our laptops to the wi-fi in the area which ended up being a task in itself as our IP addresses were blocked from obtaining the dns so we had to go through numerous settings trying to access the network. This was quite surprising and amusing for me, that 6 software development students and a professional programmer had trouble connecting to the wi-fi.
In the end we managed to resolve the issue and connected to the wi-fi by resetting the network settings. After that issue was averted we went on to try and set up a server which Daniel had acquired for us. This was so that we could carry out all our work for the week on our own private server using software called GIT. While the server was being set up in the background, Daniel went on to show us some HTML programming, so that if website developers omitted a certain line of PHP code in the websites script that anyone could access it and the information on it. This surprised me as many websites seemed to have the code missing, meaning that they were open to attacks from hackers. This could result in either information being stolen or planting of their own codes in the websites scripts for malicious purposes. Overall the day was very interesting but also challenging as I had quite a bit of trouble understanding the programming of GIT as its uses. CMD or command line which is a completely new experience for me also. After work we went to LIDL making use of a new shortcut we had discovered on the way. This was a great help as it cut a massive two minutes off our journey time. The rest of the day we spent relaxing and working on assignments after our busy weekend traveling and exploring. I am very excited and looking forward to tomorrow to see what we will learn with Daniel. -Luke Today is the second day after Easter and is one of the important and funny days for Poland. Here it is called 'Smingus-dyngus' meaning 'wet Monday', where boys go to the girls house and splash them with water. Unfortunately we didn't see any activities today but tomorrow is supposed to be the day where girls splash the boys, so we need to be careful that we don't get drenched!
In the Hotel Gorecznik where we were staying for the weekend and Easter Sunday, we had a beautiful breakfast and dinner. It was so delicious and the place was full with guests from different parts of Poland and Germany. In the evening time we moved back to Platan Hotel to get ready for our working day tomorrow where we will be working back at Zap-Kooperacja. -Ion Today was very cold, 2 degrees with a real feel of -5. It's our second day of the first weekend in Poland but it’s also Easter and almost everything was closed. In the morning we had our Polish breakfast and we took a taxi to the train station (PKP in Poland), but we were a little confused because there are 3 train stations in the town we are currently living in and we were not sure if we were going to get the right one! In the end we managed to get the right one and we were even 10 minutes early when we reached Wroclaw. Unfortunately, when we arrived all the museums and shops was closed, it was obvious that Easter and other special religious occasions are important to the Polish people.
While in Wroclaw, we visited a few of their cathedrals, where we also walked around all of the city. In the end we decided that we are going to come back again next weekend because the architecture of the city is so amazing. Later, we ate in a hotel in Wroclaw where we tried Polish soups and I tried a Polish dish which was made of apple, fried bacon, berry jam, walnuts and zucchini! It was a new experience for us but we all loved it. We then walked to the city centre and found a shop that was open for a coffee, afterwards we continued our exploration of the city before it was time to head back to the train station. We were all a little worried because we didn’t know if we were heading to the right train station but in the end everything was fine, we made it back on time and we got back to the hotel. I can’t wait to see what is going to happen tomorrow and where the adventure will take us next. -Emil Our first weekend in Poland has arrived and so far so good. We have finished the internship in the robotic department in Zap. We were recommended by our host to go to visit a castle and museum that is at about 50 km from the place where we are based. So we all decided to go and visit them. The castle was incredible, it was located in the middle of a huge park with a lake and a wide variety of different trees and plants. It belongs to the Princess of Poland. She had a history museum there also, up until the second world war. After the war it was renovated.
Pretty close to the castle is the forest museum where you can find out about the history of the different ages of the forest rangers and how they helped in the war. There are many animal trophies around the place and different types of furniture made of horns and leather. Approximately 2 km from the castle there is a bison reserve. I hadn't seen any bison previously up until today, so it was a great adventure and experience to see these animals. We are also going to go visit a town close to Ostrów. For dinner we had battered carp and cod afterwards in the hotels restaurant. It was lovely, and i'm looking forward to traveling around Poland to see new things and try new food. -Chris Hello from Poland. Our morning began by returning to the robotics laboratory to meet up with Maciej (Matthew) who walked us through more about the robotic welding machine. Although it was two days filled with information there was quite a lot more to learn before we could move onto something new. We began by finishing the welding of the sculpture we had designed the day before as there were a few more pieces to add to it. This didn’t take long to do but still could become quite confusing with the programming side of things. From the first day of programming the robot, a lot has changed in terms of how it's used.
After we finished this task we were asked to go upstairs where we were joined by one of the lead programmers who gave us a tutorial on the different types of software that is used to program their machines. This gave us a very detailed insight into the software that big companies like Zap use. After an hour of very useful information we were let off for our break where we sat and discussed our next few weeks of work. After the break we returned to the robotics lab for the last time. Matthew showed us detailed slow motion video on how the welding process takes place. Afterwards he showed us a detailed virtual simulation of the robot welding. This is primarily used as a mock to see how they will go about their welding before taking it to the main stage. Unfortunately, time was nearly up and we were called upstairs by Sebastian for one final time as he wanted to talk to us and give us our feedback on the time we spent in robotics division of Zap. We thanked them for the help and experience they had given us over this period of time. We now move onto a programming based area of work and hope to gain even more experience in this sector of the company. After this week I think we are all very grateful for the help and support we have been given. Our language skills have come along even if it’s only by the small improvements. Overall the week has been great and we have learned so much already. -Sean Today was really interesting as we learned how to program a robot to weld and we also used different types of welding methods and were shown their differing purposes. Matthew decided that we would create a sculpture between the six of us. We agreed that we would each programme one weld so that we could each contribute something to the project. This was a great experience as we were each involved and had the satisfaction of seeing the finished project and the impact of each of our programming choices.
After the activities of the day, we all ate in the company canteen and ordered our food using our Polish language skills. This was a good opportunity to put what we were learning into action. The lady working in the canteen had very little English so we had to try and converse in Polish. We are all looking forward to what tomorrow offers and the activities we will be working on. -Michael Hello from Poland. This morning we met with Sebastian again who showed us a presentation on robotics that the company develops. He then brought us to a laboratory where he showed us the project that they are currently working on, which involves screwing a screw 3 millimetres into another metal part. This was fascinating as the requirement of the project was for the machine to complete that process in under three seconds per part.
Sebastian showed us some of the older robotic arms, and explained some more of the processes of the machines. We were then introduced to Matthew, a junior engineer who was working on a robotic welding arm. He spent the rest of the day explaining how to operate it and showed us the welder in action. He allowed each of us to operate it for a short time, manoeuvring the arm whilst also teaching us how to program instructions into it. The day was a great experience overall as the machines were all fascinating. I knew more or less nothing about welding before today so it was a real learning experience for me and I’m sure it was the same for the rest of the students. -Luke Hello to everyone. Today was a really interesting and special day, when company director Josef Gregorczyk gave time to students like us and shared his experience of the business. This way very insightful and we learnt a lot from this. We then met a few of the new electronic engineers who have only been working here for the past two weeks. It was interesting to talk with them and get their insights. Afterwards we were shown the laboratory where they assemble, renovate and test the products that they engineer before delivering them to the clients. It was interesting to get a real insight into the whole process from product and software development to product distribution.
It was a pleasure to spend my day in ZAP Corporația accumulating new information and connections. Josef gave us a better understanding on how important we as a students are in shaping the future of this world. -Ion Today was our second day since we arrived and we have settled in well. I was very excited to meet our colleagues and see if I can understand the language when they are speaking Polish. It will prove an interesting challenge as I am coming from an country that speaks a similar language. Today we went to the company where we have been placed as part of our work placements and we met the managers who we are going to work with for the rest of our work experience. We also met the department managers, all of whom were so nice. To begin with we haven’t had to speak with them in Polish, but later on during the day I spoke with a few people and now I feel much more comfortable.
We waited a few minutes for the rest of their department team to show up and there was a presentation made about their company and an overview of what their work looks like. We were given a knowledge of the program details and we were also informed about the departments we are going to be working in for the next three week. The first department is in electronics and robotics, the second one is the software department, dealing with systems in supplying the fuel station software. The third department is 3D software design and development systems where we can choose what type of area to work in. Overall there seems to be a lot to explore and experience. I’m getting more and more excited about what we are going to do tomorrow, and i'm very much looking forward to that. -Emil |
Software Dev/ IT Students 2017/18Christian Vila Map of Poland |