The Sika Experience

Yesterday donation and Today… I’m gonna go to make a sandbag & portable toilet bowl.

It’s quite critical now, worst in 50 years. I’m staying in the apartment in the inner area of Bangkok, still have time to prepare for the next 3-4 days (if they cannot change the way the water flow direction and reduce its propagation). Some of my friends use the sealant product for closing the house gap area, such as windows, door, that can be easily removed after the flood ends.

Hope everyone are fine, out from flood in your country.

This is my first blog of the year 2011 :-)

One year has passed but I still remember all we have done in the Sika Mobility program. That was my first time in Europe and it is in Zurich, the 1st. I got a new friend from China and met a team of Sika Automotive, BMW, Peugeot & Citroen.

I am always happy and release a little smile when thinking about the time I enjoyed the program ;-) … until now, blogging. I miss the places & people.

Presentation @Sika Thailand

After the program, I had a chance to present my trip at Sika Thailand and was invited to join the 100Yrs anniversary of Sika in Thailand. I backed to my work, did my research. It was about the bicycle control, to make it stands upright every instants by the Piecewise Affine Control method. Although it has not been implemented in the real bicycle, it works well in the Simulation. And this work was considered as the best paper award in the ECTI conference this May, Yeh! :D.

During the Master program, I also join the Service robot joint-project for the restaurant as a project coordinator. The final masterpiece is nearly to be issued. I love the robot and plan to start the robot company in the future.

Service Robot - no cover

Now, I still serve as a coordinator of service robot project, finalizes one more paper for the next September in Japan, and looks for the place where I can develop my social skill and practice applying my technical knowledge for the near future.

Experience in Sika is worth. It influences the ways I think and commit to be better and better. I see the difference, make the comparison, and conclude the result. This always happens when we experience the different culture, system, or environment. This year, the program is not limited to the science & engineering candidates and spread outside Europe; Chile, India, Dubai,… really interesting. I hope you are the lucky winner of this year program! ^__^

After I had lost internet connection for 4 days, I have been backed to Bangkok already. I am now thinking about what I have done last week.  I wouldn’t believe I was in Sika AG Switzerland-Germany-France, met Chinese guy-Yaobo and visited BMW & PSA.  I feel that it is a fantastic trip forever. I still have a good connection with Yaobo and people in Sika.

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Now, it is 6 days after the Sika Experience program ended. However, my short note at PSA still waits for me putting it in this blog. On May-11th, Yaobo and me went to PSA Peugeot Citroën Car Plant in Mulhouse, France with Patrick & Pascal. It is much more than I expect that we see the production here very closed.ฺ

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It seems like a wonderful program for weekend in Paris is not enough…

There are a lot of travelling attractions here. We all travel around Paris by Bike, metro, and on foot. So, we can totally experience the city, people, food, etc. in Parisian style. On Sunday, after visiting Basilique du Sacré-Cœu where we can see the top view of Paris, we go directly to Eiffel Tower by metro. We reach Eiffel tower around 8.30pm and take a lot of photos here, get on the lift to the highest part of Eiffel Tower. It’s very cold windy on the top but an amazing view of Paris here stunned me and even more when it became dark. That’s so fun!!

This is something Yaobo had published, but also I’d like to share more about this awesome experience. Here, we see the process of designing and making the real products of Sika. Thanks to Nicolae, the Product Developer, for  instructing us to make and also test the SikaBaffle product. We do sawing, cutting, attaching, etc at Sika Lab and Injection molding too.

The Injection Molding part made in the Lab. (See below)

Next day, we learn more about adhesive product – Sikaflex. I cannot imagine first we’ll do it, we made the real adhesive here. Bernhard who advised us is a very smart person at this product. The equipment here is very efficient. We can do it in a specific temperature and pressure along the process. Very very interesting because we made it by our hand, not only watch it! Finally we do some tests for the adhesive we made. In the photo, Yaobo is trying ^.^.

What my colleague and I did on the first day (3th-May) in the Sika Experience – Mobility program concern about making the automotive more sustainable. We first get to know Sika more, what Sika does in the Automotive industry. I’ve just known that the products here are the key account for sustainable technology. If the weight of the car is less, the energy consumption is less, too. Some parts of the car structure will be replace by the plastic which still keeping strength but lower weight. More things I see here are the inside of a car, a variety of SikaBaffle(Reinforcer) is used for damping the acoustic vibration. So, the car has less noise and you feel more comfortable when staying in there. And remember, the car weight is lower.  This product is in the car all over the world. We’ll see the next real production line at BMW in Munich on 7th.

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