AP Courses and Self-Driving Cars
What's the point of high school math? Part 5
This is the fifth installment in the “What’s the point of high school math?” series, where I walk through the process of programming a self-driving car to “see” and navigate its environment and discuss how high school math is relevant. Part 1 introduces the terminology that computer vision engineers use to talk about such a problem. Part 2 covers statistics, Part 3 talks about algebra, and Part 4 brings us to geometry. In the interest of the Thanksgiving holiday, this one is going to be short and sweet. Here’s a list of ways different AP courses can be applied to self-driving cars:
AP Computer Science A and AP Computer Science Principals can be used to program the algorithms we have talked about in previous articles.
AP Calculus AB and AP Calculus BC are relevant in parts of the car that use machine learning - the optimization that “teaches” the machine learning algorithm relies on calculus
AP Physics 1 and AP Physics C: Mechanics are useful for the mechanical engineers that design the overall form of the car, as well as its engine
AP Physics 2 and AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnestism are useful for the electrical engineers who design the computers and circuit boards that allow the self-driving algorithms to run on the car.
AP Art and Design and AP Psychology are used by the human-computer interaction experts that design the displays of the car and determine what should be done by the human and what should be done by the machine