2009 Japan Group Trip

Nagoya was our first of "one day-ers".
We visited the Toyota Technology & Innovation Museum. Like all jap museums it rocked. We learnt that "Mr Toyota" is actually "Mr Toyoda" and he was a weaver not a car salesman. He had a weaving factory and did alot of R&D into machinery for the factory. After reaching a point he started to become interested in the development of the motor vechicle. He flogged off his weaving machine business for 1million yen to europeans and went into cars. He was pretty cool cause in all his work he did his own R&D and setup all types of departments so he could get all his own answers. Anyho, the museum started out about the weaving and we were like wtf! Showed machinery from spinning wheels to todays equipment. You can make some of the equipment work by pushing button.
We skipped one area about metal forging to see trumpet playing robot, not as fun as Asimo (Shaun says it is the lamest robot ever!!!!!!!!!!).
So we are wondering when the cars came into it and went into the next section. Gave all the back info on the development of Toyota. Us girls were ahead of the boys and we went up a set of stairs. I had been thinking that this wasnt as much info as the weaving when turned a corner and went OMG. There was a room about the size of a footie field and like a workshop. There wasnt a large range of vechicles, just some key models, trucks, forklift, corolla, corona, celisor, celica, crown. There was all the equipment needed to make a car & its parts, like the weaving, you could press buttons and make them work. There was a 2500tonne press that made alot of noise and conrods. There was a fax machine in a glovebox and we got to press a token and you could use a drill press to turn it into a keyring.
There is a "scitech" area too. We played in a wind machine and lifted a engine using leverage. Unfortunatly it was closing time so we didnt get to play much. Hours and hours of fun for 500yen.