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ANTHONY PINECI ’18 Artificial Intelligence & the Self-Driving Car Last year in Ninth Grade, Anthony Pineci completed Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science, leaving room in his schedule this year to pursue an Independent Study Project under the direction of Computer Science teacher Dan Anderson and to collaborate with his fellow students. They decided to develop a miniature self-driving car, building upon the neural network created by Anthony, Jamie Hood ’17, and Evan Visher ’17 in their Artificial Intelligence class in the 2014-15 school year. They also formed a club and invited other interested students to get involved. The Self-Driving Car Club, which now has between 15-20 members, is working on various aspects of the car. They hope to include sensors to tell the car where it is, and a camera with facial recognition abilities so it can locate a particular person. Anthony plans to continue studying artificial intelligence in college, and he hopes to be on the cutting edge of this type of research. He is appreciative of the opportunity to explore computer science at this level. He says, “Mr. Anderson is a great teacher. He really guides us, but he also just lets us dream freely and build our own programs. It is a really good way to learn.”
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