BMW internship experience
This year, I had the opportunity to undertake an internship at BMW Plant Hams Hall through the BMW QUT Design Academy. My first few weeks in Birmingham were spent settling in and getting used to the city and its public transport system. My first experience of the BMW plant was in an icebreaker day held for the interns of the Innovations and Digitalisation (I&D) team, which was held in advance of our official first day for those who could make it. During this time we got to meet other new members of the team, the old interns who would be mentoring us during the handover period, as well as getting a tour of the plant. Following this, we had our official first day with all the interns from departments across the plant. This year had the largest intern cohort so far at Hams Hall with 20+ interns spread across logistics, machining, assembly and HR.
During my first few weeks, I began work helping with one of the large ongoing projects in the I&D design team, which is the Hams Hall Vision 2030, a video being made to show off Hams Hall’s plans for digitalisation and integration of new technologies in the future. The visuals for the video are primarily being made in Blender, so despite being familiar with Blender, I was a bit apprehensive working on a project that utilised it so heavily, but thanks to the help of my mentor in the I&D team and Pieter, the previous intern I quickly got up to speed, learning a lot about blender in the process.
I’ve been able to travel while working, having been north of Leeds to see the Royal Armouries Museum and south of London to see the sights there and catch up with visiting friends. I’ve also made it across to Greece, where I got to experience Athens and take a day trip to Delphi. Just recently, I also had the opportunity to do a site visit to the Rolls Royce plant in Goodwood along with other members of the I&D team. We were there as part of the Innovation Insights event, where plants from the BMW Group UK production triangle came together to showcase new technologies being integrated into their processes.
With seven more months of my internship to go and having settled into my role at Hams Hall I’m keen start working on other projects likes Hams Halls implementation of Nvidia Omniverse and to do more travel around the UK and Europe.
Stephen Terry
BMW Group Design Intern, 2024
