Submission
It’s been extremely busy in April, May, and June putting the final touches on our Inclusive Design Challenge submission. In early May, we submitted our write-up and demo video. A lot of work went into making sure we answered all the questions posed in the write-up guidelines, and we had a great time filming our demo. During the Inclusive Design Challenge, we created a full, working prototype that covered all our proposed technology. We also created a working Autonomous Vehicle simulator to truly demonstrate that we had a fully operational system and app versus just an app that moved from page to page.
Live Demo
After our submission, we prepared for our live demo. We had additional technology we wanted to add to our system before we presented live to a large group of people. We added some great features, and with a week left before our live demo, we decided it was time to put a new face on our FAVI app. We designed our app to be fully functional with the interface being easily changeable to meet the needs of any market or group of users. Our design efforts were confirmed as we were able to get a completely new look on our app in just a few days.
Now we are awaiting the results of the challenge.
Podcast
Since our live demo, we are still working and living by our motto of “Always Forward”. Last week Chris spent an hour as the main guest on an accessibility podcast by Accessible Avenue (accessibleavenue.net) answering all kinds of questions about Autonomous Vehicle accessibility and questions about the Inclusive design challenge. It was a great time with some great questions and really showed the huge interest from the visually impaired community in AV. We’ll post a link when it’s available.
Interview
Tomorrow Chris will be interviewed by the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering Newsletter about the Inclusive Design Challenge, and what we are doing to make AV accessible.
More to come
We look forward to the coming age of Autonomous Vehicles and especially how they are going to be life changing for those with disabilities. More to come…