Saw this today…wow. That is a ton of acrylic (and can actually use “literally” here 
5600lbs, including other components, but all that, I would guess half inch acrylic will be a good part)
http://joshuajetson.com/work/intel-acrylic-car/
Need a bigger pass through slot now.
wow… the material cost would be that of a car too right? XD
Search says half inch acrylic is a little more than 3 pounds per square foot.
Weird that they did a sliced version.
Using a heat former on selected cuts would have made an outer shell for a lot less material used and a few strong lads could have moved it.
Large company PR, where cost is not a concern.
Wow. I’m still not a fan of autonomous. Driver assist…yea big time, but not autonomous.
Yeah, I’m with you there.
The poor chumps that have to dismantle, pack, ship, re-assemble it though… oh and the intern that has to clean/dust it…
Their mission was to make consumers more at ease with autonomous vehicle technology. So they made a see-through car, and then placed non-see-through monitors on the “windows”, and then exhibited it to a bunch of geeks at a show where the public isn’t allowed. I must be old, because I don’t get it.
Personally, I don’t care if my first autonomous vehicle has a space for a human. The most expensive part of driving is my time. I want my car to do things by itself - it’s supposed to be self-driving, so why does it need me??? I want my second autonomous vehicle to be a RV. I despise RVs, but if one could pick me up from work on Friday and I could wake up 12, 14 hours away, well now that would be useful. As would sending it off a day or two ahead of a vacation to meet me at the destination airport. If you want to make people comfortable with self-driving cars, show them what they’re missing.
Dust was may first thought too!
Another unicorn rainbow utopia. Anyone who actually deals with computers will never be an at ease consumer.
I have been dealing with computers since 78 and had a good career because “Automatic Ain’t”.
Especially the robotics during the last decades of my career. They needed constant baby sitting. They expected a very defined environment, which is harder to do than it seems. Something as mundane as sunlight flickering on a moving piece of equipment could trigger a sensor and would send them into the weeds.
Now put that smart machine into an environment with people doing people things. Kids pulling pranks. Drunks. Someone having a bad day and just feeling mean. And that is not even going into mother nature doing her interesting stuff. Thousands upon thousands of other little ‘things’ that the programmers never saw coming.
Only solution for autonomous vehicles is if ALL the vehicles are autonomous and in communication with each other. And even then there will be people making a career out of picking up the pieces when it goes badly (because Automatic Ain’t).
Good point. I know someone who works at a huge AMZN warehouse with those robot palette movers and there’s a team dedicated to getting them going again if they run into each other or get knocked off their marks.
They follow QR code-like stickers on the floor. If a box shifts on the palette causing two robots to nudge each other, they can lose their trail of QR breadcrumbs and go dumb. Instant traffic jam.