Kids who do not have a license, are teaching cars to drive autonomously.
Local STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Academy students learned how to use artificial intelligence to program self driving cars, 1/18 the size of a normal car.
The small scale cars were invented by Amazon Web Services.
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David Johnson, President of Pearl Technology, said the students work with simulators in the Cloud on Amazon Web Services.
“They give it perimeters, and then the car actually teaches itself how to drive around the track,” Johnson said.
To help teach the cars, the students use reinforcement techniques.
1470 & 100.3 WMBD/Kristina Leahy
Johnson said the students save all the information, and transfer it from The Cloud to a small car with an on board computer.
The cars then drive themselves along a track. The students can only start and stop the car, and also control the speed. The rest is up to the car.
Since the cars learn in a near perfect, virtual environment, things such as a camera flash or footprints on the track can confuse the car.
Johnson said the kids do enjoy the program and “are having a riot”.
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Judy Schmidt with the University of Illinois said middle school age is a great time to introduce students to STEM.
“Middle school is a really critical time when kids start to decide whether they think these types of activities, particularly in the STEM field, are interesting or not,” Schmidt said. “We want to provide something that maybe is a spark for them”.
Corey Gorman, engineering technical steward, said he hopes a program like this inspires students, just as he was inspired with Commodore 64 programming.
“Having this opportunity with the autonomous cars, maybe it’ll do something similar for a group of kids here as well,” Gorman said.
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