Self-Driving Cars, by Addison Wechter

2 Responses to "Self-Driving Cars, by Addison Wechter"

Brandon Smith says:

May 12, 2014 at 11:19 am

I like that you compared Google’s goal of a fully autonomous car without the need for human interaction to how car manufactures still want the human driver to be ultimately in control. It was a good way to show that not everyone has agreed about what self-driving cars will mean. Connecting that to Kranzberg’s first law was a nice touch. Personally, I appreciated that you used images from Closer Than We Think in the slidecast; however all the older images helped put self-driving cars into a longer historical context.
The sound quality could have been a little better, but it wasn’t too much of an issue. Other than that, the narration was very clear and understandable. Overall, I’d say this was a very well done slidecast. I found it very interesting, and it taught me a lot about self-driving cars.

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Anthony Vecchio says:

May 12, 2014 at 1:51 pm

You made a good introduction that captured my interest. I liked that you pointed out how the self-driving car incorporates/requires two of the greatest, most influential technologies of the past century or so, cars and computers. It would have been nice if the audio was better, but you did speak clearly and loudly, which was helpful. I thought that the slidecast was well-organized and gave solid historical context. For example, people in the 1950s wanted more leisure time and envisioned a car that drove itself, allowing you to do whatever you wanted during your trip instead of driving and watching the road. You provided meaningful historical references, drawing on various sources such as television and comics; I especially liked the one from the 1959 edition of Arthur Radebaugh’s Sunday comic strip called “Closer Than We Think”. On this slide, however, I thought that you should have included the caption of the image on the slide. I liked that you mentioned that the major car manufacturers plan on slowly integrating technologies that make driving more autonomous, but still plan on allowing the human to have ultimate control of the car. I learned and found it fascinating that Google’s self-driving cars have already driven 700,000 autonomous, accident-free miles. It was also interesting to learn how these cars use sensors on the roof to analyze their surroundings.

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