Internship of Marnick Olthuis at Boge Slovakia

Master student Marnick Olthuis:

"For my internship I decided to spend some time in a foreign country, preferably not too close to the Netherlands. BOGE Rubber & Plastics caught my attention as I heard they have good support for interns and their engineering is on a high level. They produce plastic and rubber automotive parts, such as pedal boxes and bushings, which are rubber absorbers that link chassis, engine and transmission parts of the car. (See figures) Their headquarters is situated in a small German town called “Damme”, but BOGE has facilities all over the world, including America and China. Their development and validation centers are situated inside Europe in Germany and Slovakia. The department in Slovakia develops for the high-end market, such as Porsche, Aston Martin and Ferrari. As I had not visited much of Eastern Europe in my life, I was curious to possibilities inside Slovakia.

BOGE Slovakia offered me a three month internship inside Material Development for research regarding Rubber to Metal bonding inside Bentley bushings. My stay in Slovakia (Trnava) turned out to be great. A large part of the 66.000 inhabitants are students and the city has many historical building. They have a football club “Spartac Trnava” that made it into the Europa League last year and around their Arena is a large shopping center where a lot of activity takes place. The working environment in BOGE is stimulating and open-minded staff is always available for helping you out. You get a lot of freedom, whilst being able to use a lot of equipment, assisted by qualified staff. Finally, I got a good look into the automotive parts industry and it has been a great learning experience to work at BOGE."