Owen Derby, a participant of the St. Paul’s Advanced Studies Program, spent several weeks during this summer working in the Project54 lab. He created several scenarios for the Project54 driving simulator. The scenarios are to be used in testing driver distraction. Here is a picture of Owen during the presentation he gave about his work at Project54.

Owen’s scenarios are meant to surprise the driver; for example in one of the scenarios a pedestrian quickly walks into the street (on a collision course with the simulated vehicle) from behind a parked bus. If the driver is distrated he/she may not apply the brakes in time. Btw, Owen will make sure you cannot actually hit the pedestrian! While hitting an animated character does no harm, it may have an emotional effect on a participant in a study, and this is something we’d like to avoid.

Andrew Kun

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