The Center for Accessibility and Safety for an Aging Population (ASAP), on October 24, 2017, hosted a laboratory visit by members of the Women in Math, Science, and Engineering (WIMSE). Based at the Florida State University (FSU), WIMSE is a living-learning community (LLC) on campus that supports the growth and development of women in STEM fields. Under the leadership of Dr. John Sobanjo (ASAP Director), and supervision of Richard Twumasi-Boakye, Ryan Doczy, and Sneha Chityala, all graduate students and research assistants at Florida State University, the group of the six visiting WIMSE students was introduced to the Driving Simulator Laboratory at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering.

The laboratory visit which lasted for an hour was divided into three (3) sessions. The first session comprised a brief overview of the fundamental research emphases of the UTC, and applications of the ultra-modern DriveSafety Driving Simulator. The second session was designed with a primary goal of creating a sense of cognizance of the area of transportation engineering, including a clear understanding of essential concepts related to driver decisions such as speed, permitted left-turn movement, and gap acceptance. This was achieved through a short exercise developed in which the students had to decide when driving, whether or not to make a permitted left-turn movement based on the available headways (gaps) between oncoming vehicles. The final session included a review of on-going research projects that involved the use of the Driving Simulator. Afterwards, the students took turns in operating the Driving Simulator.

In summary, this event was very successful, with most of the WIMSE students expressing interests in the laboratory’s research activities. They further mentioned how much knowledge they had gained with respect to aging-focused research and were also impressed with the Driving Simulator’s research applications and capabilities.