Driverless

I’ve spent this past week looking for a new car. It’s been many years since I purchased a new vehicle and when I went to the dealership, I was amazed by all the new technology that has been implemented in some of these new cars. This includes features like advanced cruise control with lane assistance, blind spot detectors, proximity warnings, lane change alerts and the list goes on. With my first car, I had to have a friend help me park because it had no rear-view camera. I never even had a remote key; I had to use my physical key to unlock the vehicle and the car alarm was a sensor that pointed towards the door. 

Since then, we’ve come a long way. Now, we’re living in the age of driverless or autonomous driving machines.

Resources

Amazon Scout

Self-Driving Cars Explained

Puzzle Maker

WIRED – Autonomous Vehicles Covered

A user’s Guide to Self-Driving Cars

BEST Resources

Research/Reflect/Brainstorm

Amazon is working on a driverless delivery vehicle called “SCOUT”. Watch it in action here.

Take some time to do a little research about what other companies are developing or already utilizing driverless machines. What is the purpose for each of these creations? How do they work?

Activity

What’s your opinion about driverless cars and autonomous machines?

In this activity, you’ll be creating a word search that supports your stance of being either in support of or in opposition of driverless cars. Before you create the search, you’ll need to do some research that backs up your argument. After your deep-dive, use the key terms you found and create a puzzle.

One approach to this task is to get in groups to create a word search, then share with other teammates to have them solve the puzzle.

Here is a website where you can make your own word search, or you can find another website to create your puzzle.

BEST Connection

How do you think BEST Robotics should adapt to the idea of driverless or autonomous robots? Do you think there is a place in BEST Robotics where competitions could add a driverless portion to the game?

If you’ve been a part of BEST for a while, what past competitions do you think could have had an autonomous portion?

What would a driverless part of the game look like?

What parts of your team would the driverless portion affect? How? Why?

Community Connection

You wake up in the morning to get ready for school. You go outside and wait by the bus stop for your ride to arrive. The bus pulls up and the door opens – there is no driver. You sit down in your seat and the bus automatically drives off. Can you imagine a world like this?

Imagine your community with driverless vehicles. What would it look like to you? Have you noticed anything autonomous in your community? What car companies already offer driverless capabilities?

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy: create, explore, evaluate, generate, include, identify, list, observe, reflect, review, use, and write

Workforce Skills

Critical thinking, materials evaluation, reading comprehension, science, writing, research