AUGUST 20 27 / 2015 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 23

2Since Karl Benz invented the modern car in the 1880s, hu-mans have steered its descendants on the worlds roads.

Ahmad Rad, a professor in Simon Fraser Universitys School of Mechatronic Systems Engineer-ing, told the Georgia Straight that times are changing. Hes research-ing driverless cars and advanced driver-assistance systems at SFUs Surrey campus.

So maybe automobile is a mis-nomer, Rad said during an interview at the Autonomous and Intelligent Systems Laboratory on the campus at Central City. What were seeing now is a paradigm shift, in a sense that the car that we know is gradually morphing into an autonomous robot. The task of a driver will change from driving to supervising the car.

Rad and PhD student Mehran Shirazi showed the Straight the driving simulator in one corner of the lab. It consists of a car seat with a steering wheel, a dashboard, andin place of a windshieldthree flat-screens showing a city street. Two infrared cameras sit on the dash, facing the driver.

The professor explained that the cameras constitute an eye tracker, which discerns where the driver is looking. This system can detect whether a driver is sending a text

message, intoxicated, or falling asleep.Rads research team uses Fatal

Vision goggles to simulate the im-pairment associated with particu-lar blood-alcohol concentrations. In the future, he predicted, an auto-mated car will temporarily take over from a distracted driver, and pull over and park or head home if someone is unfit to drive.

The human is driving the car, Rad said. But once it sees that the human is talking [on a cellphone] or sending texts, it will take over. Or, in worse cases, if the car recog-nizes that this person is drunk, it will take control of the car.

According to Rad and Shirazi, cars of the future will pair the eye tracker with a front-facing camera. This camera will be used to detect jaywalkers and road signs.

In many cases, drivers might not look at the signs, Shirazi said. The eye tracker will detect if the driver has seen the sign or notthe speed limit, any warnings. If not, the car itself would detect the sign and inform the driver that there was this sign that you missed.

Alternatively, Rad added, the car might override the driver in order to obey a stop sign or stay under the speed limit.

The professor said that eye-track-ing systems could be introduced

in luxury cars in five to 10 years. However, he asserted that, once the software has been proven to be reli-able, these systems should be made mandatory for every car on the street because they will reduce the number of collisions.

At some point, the seat belt was something which was designed for safety, Rad said. A lot of people didnt wear seat belts. But now it is es-sential for every carfrom expensive to cheap.

As for fully driverless cars, Rad predicted they wont become wide-spread for another 20 years. He remarked that people shouldnt underestimate the challenge of de-veloping the artificial intelligence required for self-driving cars.

Driving implies a lot of thingsa multilayered decision-making process, Rad said. And the decision-making part is the challenge. Just putting sensors in the car and getting information is one thing. But how to interpret the data into decisionsthat part is really the key and creates chal-lenges in designing a completely autonomous car.

In March, the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Associa-tion released a report on the privacy implications of connected cars. Written by lawyer Philippa Law-son, The Connected Car: Who Is in the Drivers Seat? includes vehicles equipped with driver-monitoring systems and autonomous cars inte-grated with intelligent transporta-tion systems in this category. Ac-cording to the report, intelligent transportation systems rely on vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications.

As a key component of the ex-panding Internet of Things, Con-nected Cars are now feeding the Big

Data machine and in particular, the increasingly personalized and targeted commercial marketing industry, the report states. The same technologies that create this data also create new security risks. Besides exposing vehicle operations to malicious hacking through new wireless entry points, they are cre-ating huge new databases of per-sonal data that is vulnerable not only to unauthorized access but also to unexpected use by govern-ments, law enforcement agencies, insurers and others seeking to iden-tify, monitor or take action against individual drivers or car owners.

At the Autonomous and Intel-ligent Systems Laboratory, Shirazi showed the Straight an Emotiv EPOC neuroheadset. The EEG de-vice has 14 electrodes and records electrical activity in the brain.

Using the headset, Shirazi said, theyre able to detect when a driver is thinking about braking, turning left, or turning right. This research could eventually allow someone to drive a car without touching the steering wheel or pedals.

Noting that a neuroheadset is very invasive, Rad asserted that such a system would likely be used by people who have disabilities that prevent them from driving a stan-dard car. -

INTELLIGENT CARS HIT THE ROAD >>>

In New Westminsters River Market, Cora Fanucchi pointed to three 3-D printers sit-ting on tables in a small room on the second floor.

The student research assistant with the Digital Cultures Lab at Douglas College told the Georgia Straight that the Printrbot, Afinia, and MakerBot printers turn digital files into physical objects by depositing layer upon layer of molten plastic. For example, the MakerBot Replicator, the largest of the three machines, was used to print a model of a Tyrannosaurus rex skull.

As you can see, the prints that are produced with this are not only bigger, but theyre defin-itely better, Fanucchi, who lives in Burnaby, said at the Douglas College Maker Lab (206A810 Quayside Drive). This is probably one of our best prints. Its pretty amazing.

Located a few blocks south of the colleges New Westminster campus, the Maker Lab opened in 2014 opposite the Vancouver Circus School. As one of a dozen or so makerspaces in Metro Van-couver, its a collaborative space that has machin-ery in it that allows you to play with technology, form unique partnerships, meet people, and gain experience, according to David Wright, the co-ordinator of research and innovation at Douglas.

The Maker Lab is overseen by members of the Digital Cultures Lab, which consists of a team of re-searchers exploring the use of digital media in edu-cation, and is available for use by Douglas students and staff. So far, it has hosted research projects and workshops on 3-D printing and infographics.

Wright told the Straight that the 3-D printers have been used to reproduce a statue of assas-sinated U.S. president John F. Kennedy, Doug-las Couplands Gumhead sculpture, cultural artifacts, and various trinkets.

Weve done that primarily because were look-ing at: how do these machines work, what can they do, whats reasonable, how long does it take? Wright said by phone from Kitsilano.

Wright noted the Maker Lab should prove useful to students in the colleges new engin-eering program, which starts up in September. Douglas is introducing a one-year engineering-foundations certificate and a two-year engin-eering-essentials diploma.

The idea behind this thing is to give students a space where they can experiment with these things, use them, and see how they work or dont work, which is often the case, Wright said.

According to Wright, other colleges and uni-versities would benefit from creating makerspaces and promoting hands-on learning.

But they should do their homework first around people like us, who are pretty much on the vanguard

of this stuff, Wright said. I think that what were go-ing to do in the next year is really look at ways in which the classroom can become a prototyping space. Right now, the classroom is really do-oriented rather than make-oriented.

A report released earlier this year by the Texas-based New Media Consortium identifies makerspaces as one of six im-portant developments in educational technology for higher education, along with Bring Your Own Device, the flipped classroom, wearable technol-ogy, adaptive learning technologies, and the Internet of Things. The NMC Horizon Report: 2015 Higher Education Edition fore-casts the widespread adoption of makerspaces by postsecondary institutions within two to three years.

Proponents of makerspaces for education high-light the benefit of engaging learners in creative, higher order problem solving through hands-on de-sign, construction, and iteration, the report states. The question of how to renovate or repurpose class-rooms to address the needs of the future is being answered through the concept of makerspaces, or workshops that offer tools and the learning experi-ences needed to help people carry out their ideas.

According to the report, makerspaces have popped up at NSCAD University in Halifax, Har-vard University, the University of Michigan, and

the University of Southern California, among other places. It notes that makerspaces often have tools such as laser cutters, soldering irons, and Arduino and Raspberry Pi computers.

Whatever the supplies, the overarching goal of a makerspace is to be a place where people are free to experiment and make things, on their own, and as part of a productive commun-ity, the report says.

Back at the Douglas College Maker Lab, Fanucchi showed the Straight the rest

of the makerspaces equipment. The MakerBot Digitizer is a 3-D scanner that takes a physical object and makes a digital file that can be used to print rep-licas. Theres also a Parrot drone and an Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset.

Fanucchi noted that, when she tells people shes into 3-D printing, they are

often surprised and enthusiastic. It took seven hours for the MakerBot Replicator to print her a penholder built out of digits representing the ap-proximate value of pi, the mathematical constant.

I didnt really know much about 3-D printing prior to this, Fanucchi said. I thought it would be a really great opportunity for me to learn, and it was. Ive had so much fun doing it. -

On September 17, the Digital Cultures Lab pre-sents Building Better Boxes in a Culture of Innova-tion, an Innovation Series workshop on 3-D printing and other technologies, at the Anvil Cen-tre (777 Columbia Street) in New Westminster.

BY STEPHEN HUI

Cora Fanucchi, the student research assistant with Douglas Colleges Digital Cultures Lab, helps turn digital files into real-world objects. Stephen Hui photo.

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SFU prof Ahmad Rad is researching driverless cars. Stephen Hui photo.

Adventures in makerspaces

Douglas Colleges Maker Lab allows students to collaborate and experiment with fast-emerging technology like 3-D printing