Henry Ford Museum and the Rouge Factory Tour

BY: IZABELLA

     INFO

DATE:  Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2010

WHERE : HENRY FORD MUSEUM & THE ROUGE FACTORY TOUR (Michigan)

DIVAS:Izabella & Sydney

This is a picture of  Sydney and me in front of the museum

      Over Christmas vacation Sydney and I went to Michigan and then to NJ.  While in Michigan we visited with my Uncle David, who is an an engineer at Ford.  He is proud of the company he works for, and was excited to show us around.  

     We started with a visit to the Henry Ford Museum. The museum is very large, and it could take many days to see everything. As we expected, we saw many different years of Ford cars.  There was also other car manufacturers.

Fun Fact

Ford owned Land Rover from 2000 til 2008. 

Under Ford, the LR3 was introduced, along    

the Range Rover Sport and LR2.

In 2008 Land Rover was sold to Ta Ta Motors of India. 

The first display when you enter the museum the first Oscar Meier Wiener-mobile.  It is very funny, and hard to believe it was really driven around town. This was one of the interactive exhibits in the museum.  Sydney and I both got to play dress up a little, as you can see by the pictures below. 



Sydney in front of the wiener mobile

Sydney is an over-sized hot dog, about to be served as
somebody's lunch!!!!!!!!

 Below is a locomotive (funny word)  and other trains owned and used by the Ford Factory in the early 1940s. 



This is the mega, red train track snow plow



Sydney and I are sitting in the locomotive of the train

!!!!!!CAMPING!!!!!!!!

Pop-up???

One area of the museum had historical campers! There was a  VW camper bus, a Ford House Car, and even an old, pop up camper.

Hippie van !!!!!! Peace !!!!!!

Mobile home or a house on wheels ?

,http://www.gtamarketing.com/1937FordHousecar.html
 

Fun Fact

Did you know???

Henry Ford never actually had a drivers license!

One of my favorite exhibits was about airplanes, it was  called "Heroes of the Sky".  This exhibit had famous women pilots, explorers, and wing walkers.

WHO SAYS A WOMEN CAN'T FLY A PLANE???!!!

The wing walkers were very daring and I am not sure I would like to have done that job. But, I admire how brave they were.

   The airplane exhibit I most liked was the Arctic Expedition trip.  The main Explorer was Richard Evelyn Byrd, a navy pilot.  He claimed he had flown the first north pole flight in 1926.  The trip was sponsored by Ford, and the plane was made by Fokker.  I would like to read more about their trip.  I would also like to learn more about the gear they used and how they survived.

Fun Fact

Fokker was the manufacturer of the plane and made sure his name appeared in large letters, so that no one would mistake it as a Ford:)

FORD MODEL T

At the Model T exhibit, you could sit and pretend to drive!! It was so cool !. Every day they take this exact car apart and kids can help rebuild it (with a little help from adults). The only thing kids can't do is lift the engine, it's too heavy. The museum lady in charge of the exhibit, said that, "it has been rebuilt over 500 times".  When they reach a thousand, they will have a party.

                                                           FUN FACT!!!
                                                       Did You Know.......
               In the old days,  if your feet could reach the pedals you could   drive!

This is a little city that is entirely made out of LEGOs. The cars, roads, people, buildings, farms, train tracks and crops were all Lego pieces. The workers at this exhibit put super heroes, such as Spiderman, Batman, Superman in the buildings.  To find the heroes  you have to look closely at the detail of the buildings. I was amazed how real the buildings looked.  A local Lego club built this, and it must have taken at least a year, or more.

PART OF THE FORD MUSEUM IS THE FACTORY TOUR

 THE ROUGE FACTORY TOUR

The Rouge museum is down the road from the Henry Ford.  You have to travel by bus to get there.  The factory is not always open, so we were lucky to see it.   This tour has 6 stages to see, and you can move as fast or as slow as you want.  We ran out of time and skipped stage 5 and 6.  It is o.k., now I have a reason to go back.

STAGE 1 and 2,  MOVIES!! 


The first movie was about Ford Motor Company's history along with a story about Henry Ford. The second movie  was a 360 degree  theater, and our chair could also move 360 degrees. The movie showed how a Ford F150 was made and assembled. I thought that the movie was so cool, because, you used every one of your senses except for taste.  If the car in the movie was being  spray painted then we were sprayed with water, there was a red glow, and it even smelled like paint.  When the car was tested in the wind it felt like a storm in the theater. If the car was being welded, lights flickered in the theater,  and there was a smoky smell.
 

STAGE 3, The Observation Deck
     To get to this stage you had take a elevator to the top floor of the building.  This is where you can get a look at the The Living Roof.  The 10.4 acre roof covers the assembly line building, and uses a new technology to conserve water and energy.  The roof is made of a plant called Sedum. This plant is not grown in soil.  It grows from a special 4 layer pad.  Sedum helps protect the building, and cleans the air around it.

Benefits of Sedum and the mats that it grows on

• Sedum only grows 6" in height, so it never needs to be mowed
•  uses carbon dioxide and produces Oxygen
•  collects and filters rain water run off
•  protects the factory roof, and the roof lasts twice as long as paint or tar roofs.
• Insulation -  keeps the factory cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter

http://www.thehenryford.org/rouge/leedlivingroof.aspx

Water Conservation at the Rouge

• Ford has 2 parking lots that uses a porous pavement, porous means there is lots of holes and water can leak through

•  Water from rain and snow melt is collected and recycled.  It is collected into a 12,500 gallon tank and used for irrigation.

4. The factory floor
       I'm sorry I don't have any pictures for you from this stage,but that's because your not allowed to take any pictures in the factory! I did find a picture from another website, so you could get an idea of what I saw.  We did not get to see my favorite part of a car assembly (the part where it is painted) but it was still awesome!  After the car is painted they separate the body, the bed, and the doors to be worked on.  

      Each  of these parts are put on a wooden platform and move through stations for special work.  We did see seats, dashboards , lights and windshields  installed. One side of the factory floor assembled the truck bed, and the other side assembled the cab inside and out.  After the bed  and the cab are finished, they were matched up  and sent to another part of the factory.  I liked the robot chair the best., the worker sits on it, and the seat moves into the car for the job. We also saw multiple other interesting machines in use.  After the trucks are complete, they are sent to another area to be tested for problems.  Then a worker will test drive each truck 12 miles, before it is considered o.k., and can be sold.

    I do not want to give away anymore information!   It is a place you have to go and see for yourself,  how much fun it really is !!!!!!!