technically speaking Vanessa Revelli [email protected] I’m excited to share a technology that is coming to my using bike lanes because of hometown, Ann Arbor, MI. This fall, residents will be able its slow speed—it only trav- to have their food delivered from selected restaurants by els 10-15 mph. It carries the an autonomous robot called REV-1. The robot is the brain- food in a large storage com- child of a local business called Refraction AI, which was partment which is accessed founded by University of Michigan professors, Matthew by using a unique passcode Johnson-Roberson and Ram Vasudevan. The two have a entered on a keypad. long history with autonomous vehicles and work together “We’d been working in the space for a fairly long time at the university’s Robot- and working on the large self-driving vehi- ics program. cle problems,” Vasudevan says. “We want- The story behind how ed to see if there was a way that we could they came up with the bring some of those things that we’d been idea was from a food deliv- thinking about into the real world, without ery that went wrong. Two having to worry about solving the full self- years ago, they placed a driving car problem”, says Vasudevan. delivery order and when “We thought that deploying in a place they received it, it was half AI like Ann Arbor, where there’s a young an hour late and was miss- community that’s more willing to engage ing items. They called the efraction with this type of thing, and also making R restaurant to fix the issue of it accessible to places that have winter and were surprised when weather, was really important. So, Ann Ar- the owner herself came courtesy bor fit that set of requirements in a really to deliver the food and nice way.” Refraction has partnered with Photo apologize. She explained two restaurants in town, one of which, of that the restaurant was having a bad day, and it was her course, is the one that started the whole thing. birthday. “We were hearing this really sad story and we thought, ‘Hey, we work in the autonomous vehicle space. This seems like a really great opportunity to start addressing some real problems,’” Vasudevan says. So, the two started working on developing the three-wheeled vehicle. It trav- els between restaurants and delivery locations primarily EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Joseph Scarcella, Ph.D., Professor of Education, Cali- Michael Fitzgerald, Engineering and Technology Education fornia State University, San Bernadino Specialist, Delaware Department of Education, Dover Mark Schwendau, M.S., Ind. Mgmt. Kishwaukeee College, A Prakken Publications Magazine Edward J. Lazaros, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Malta, IL, Retiree Information Systems and Operations Management, Ball Bert Siebold, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Industrial & Digital Tech Directions (ISSN 1940-3100) is published six State University, Muncie, IN Engineering Technology, Murray State University, KY times a year—August/September, October, November/De- Ed Prevatt, School Specialist, National Center for Construc- Jim Smallwood, Ph. 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