Andrew Kun

In a front page article of the March 11, 2010 edition of the New York Times Matt Richtel discusses in-vehicle electronic devices used by first responders. Based on a number of interviews, including one with me, Matt gets the point across that interactions with in-vehicle devices can distract first responders from the primary task for any driver: driving. The personal accounts from first responders are certainly gripping. Thanks Matt for bringing this issue to the public.

Enter Project54. According to Matt “[r]esearchers are working to reduce the risk.” He goes on to describe UNH’s Project54 system which allows officers to issue voice commands in order to interact with in-car electronic devices. This means officers can keep their eyes on the road and their hands on the wheel. The article includes praise for the Project54 system by Captain John G. LeLacheur of the New Hampshire State Police. The Project54 system was developed in partnership with the NHSP and almost every NHSP cruiser has the Project54 system installed.

Both the print and the online versions of the article begin with a picture of the Project54 in-car system. This great picture was taken by Sheryl Senter and it shows Sergeant Tom Dronsfield of the Lee, NH Police Department in action.

In an effort to promote the CEPS-BUTE exchange program I gave the following presentation to two similar audiences here at UNH. Last Monday Kent Chamberlin hosted me in his ECE 401 class (the introductory ECE course) and I had a chance to talk to about 75 ECE freshmen. Today I gave the presentation to Bob Henry’s TECH 400 students (TECH 400 introduces the CEPS majors to CEPS undeclared students).

My main point was this: spending a semester abroad gives students a competitive advantage because it proves that they can adapt to change. Of course spending a semester in Europe allows students to travel and I spent some time promoting my favorite travel guide author, Rick Steves :)

After my trip to Automotive UI 2009 I flew to Budapest, Hungary. The UNH College of Engineering and Physical Sciences has an exchange program with BUTEand I went to promote this program to BUTE students. I also got a chance to meet two people responsible for implementing the program “on the ground” in Budapest, Eszter Kiss and Máté Helfrich. Eszter is the person who looks after the UNH students (and many others from all over the world) from the time they arrive in Budapest, so I was very happy to meet her and express UNH’s gratitude for all of her efforts.

Eszter organized a talk in which I presented some of the reasons why a semester at UNH would be beneficial to BUTE students (see the slides). The discussion that followed my presentation was excellent, with students asking questions about many aspects of the exchange program, as well as a new summer internship program. The discussion was in Hungarian, which was fun, as I don’t use this language for work very much :)

You can see more pictures about my visit on Flickr.