By Gregory Scott Staff Writer
Junior DeVaughn Humphries thinks the automotive technology that will prevent accidents is pretty cool.
“They’re making cars that can talk to each other, read each other’s minds and get to know their surroundings so they don’t go ramming into each other,” Humphries said.
Carl Klimek, executive orchestrator of Square One Education Network, met Humphries at the Michigan International Speedway last May where schools were racing their innovative vehicle designs (IVDs). Because of Humphries’ interest in a career in automotive technology, Klimek asked him to be on a panel at the 2014 World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) held at Cobo Hall Sept. 7-11. He also invited Humphries and his Cody DIT STEaM classmates to attend two days of the conference.
Students were excited about attending the event. Promotion of the event on the ITS website said, “more than 10,000 of the world’s leading transportation policymakers, researchers, high-tech innovators, and business professionals from the United States, Europe and Asia will gather to share the latest intelligent transportation systems (ITS) applications from around the globe.”
Cody DIT was one of only three high schools in the area asked to send a team to compete in an event called Speed Build on Sept. 8. Each team of six had three hours to convert a gas go-kart to an electric. They had to assemble the entire car including the electrical system, brakes, steering and safety before getting to travel one lap on a track.
When a larger Cody group went to the conference on Sept. 10 they got to experiment with magnetic levitation cars. Groups of two or three students were given kits full of parts and had to make the cars, get them to travel down a magnetic track, and get the fastest time.
The maglev cars were junior Tyler Zellous’s favorite part.
“I like messing around with wires and tearing things apart, trying to find ways to make things work without an instruction book,” Zellous said. “Just the difficulty of the project was fun for me.”
