What is a self-driving car?

Buckle up for a wild ride into the future! Have you ever wondered what it would be like to ride in a car that drives itself—with nobody touching the steering wheel? Join Mira and Finn on Science is Not Boring as they explore the amazing robotic brains behind self-driving cars! Discover how these futuristic vehicles use an incredible technology called LiDAR to shoot millions of invisible laser beams every second, creating a massive 3D video game-style map of the world. You won't believe how smart they are! Did you know a modern robot car uses over one hundred million lines of computer code? That is way more than a giant flying passenger jet! We'll also travel back in time to the 1980s to meet Ernst Dickmanns and his crazy five-ton self-driving van. Plus, we'll answer a special listener question about a real-life transforming sports car from Slovakia that grows giant wings and actually flies through the clouds! Get ready to explore spinning lasers, super-fast robot brains, and the high-flying future of engineering! Tap play and let's hit the road!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Welcome to Science is Not Boring by Kidopoly.com.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

I'm Mia! And I'm Finn. We love investigating the weirdest and wildest science facts in the universe.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Before we dive in today, we have a very special shout-out to send. A massive hello to Mia, who is six years old and lives all the way in Los Angeles.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Hi Mia! We hear that you absolutely love engineering, and you specifically asked us to talk about flying cars.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

This entire episode is dedicated to you, Mia. Okay, Finn, buckle up, because I have a mind-blowing number for you. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_01 1:27

I am always ready for a wild number. Hit me with it.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

A self-driving car doesn't just look at the road, it processes over two million pieces of data every single second, just to know exactly where it is in the world.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Two million? Every single second? My brain hurts just trying to count that fast.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Yep. And while your tablet might have a few million lines of code to run video games, a self-driving car runs on more than 100 million lines of computer code.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

That is an unbelievable amount of math. So we are talking about actual robots driving us around on the highway?

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Exactly! Today we are exploring the amazing engineering behind self-driving cars, how they think and how they make choices.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

But how do they even see the road? Do they have giant electronic eyes hidden somewhere?

SPEAKER_00 2:21

They have something way better. We are going to talk about spinning laser scanners, robot cars driving at 110 miles per hour, and yes, Mia, real flying cars.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

So if a robot car doesn't have human eyes, how does it avoid crashing into everything on the street?

SPEAKER_00 2:38

It uses a super advanced technology called LIDA. That stands for light detection and ranging.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Light detection. So it actually uses beams of light to see the world around it.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Exactly! If you see a self-driving car on the road, look for a giant spinning cylinder on top of its roof.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Like a really fast robot hat spinning around up there.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Kind of. That cylinder is packed with lasers. It shoots out invisible infrared lasers in every direction, hundreds of times faster than you can blink.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Whoa, it shoots lasers? How many are we talking about here? Hundreds? Thousands?

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Some top-tier lidar systems shoot over 2.6 million laser pulses every single second. That's enough to map a whole city block in an instant.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Over 2 million lasers a second? That is completely impossible to even picture.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

The lasers bounce off cars, trees, people, and even tiny stray dogs, and then reflect right back to the sensor on the roof.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

And the computer just times exactly how long the light takes to come back.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

You got it! Because light travels at a constant speed, the computer can calculate the exact distance of everything around it, down to the millimetre.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

So it creates a giant map using nothing but light?

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Yes. It builds a massive three-dimensional map called a point cloud. It's exactly like seeing the world inside a video game matrix.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

But wait, what about the colour of traffic lights? Lasers can't see the colour red or green, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Good catch! That's why self-driving cars also use normal high-definition cameras to see colours, and special radar to see through heavy fog and rain.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Okay, this sounds like incredibly futuristic technology. When did scientists first figure this out? Like five or ten years ago?

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Try the 1980s! Let's travel back in time to 1987 in Germany.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

1987? My parents were kids back then. Cars barely had cassette players, let alone robot laser brains.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

True! But an amazing aerospace engineer named Ernst Dickmans wanted to teach a car to see.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Ernst Dickmans? How did he do it without modern microchips and tiny computers?

SPEAKER_00 5:05

He took a massive 5-ton Mercedes passenger van and completely packed the inside with heavy giant cameras and early computer processors.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

A five-ton robot van? It must have looked like a spaceship inside. Did it actually work? It did!

SPEAKER_00 5:23

They tested it on a completely empty autobahn, which is a famously fast German highway, and it drove by itself at 60 miles per hour.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

No way! A self-driving van going 60 miles an hour in the 1980s!

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Yes, but he didn't stop there. In 1995, his team built a much sleeker car that drove 1,000 miles across Europe.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

1,000 miles? Did a human driver have to grab the wheel to help? Almost never.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

It even changed lanes automatically and safely passed other cars at speeds up to 110 miles per hour.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

110 miles per hour without holding the steering wheel? That is so fast! I would be completely terrified.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

And the craziest part? It did all of this with less computer power than a basic smartwatch you would wear on your wrist today.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

If the computers were that weak back then, how incredibly smart are they now?

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Unbelievably smart. Remember how I said at the very beginning that a modern car has 100 million lines of computer code running through its brain.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Yeah, that sounds like a totally massive number. But what does it actually mean in real life? How big is 100 million?

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Well, to put it in perspective, think about a giant Boeing 787 passenger jet, which flies hundreds of people across the ocean. That entire plane only uses about 14 million lines of code.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Wait, wait, wait. Are you seriously telling me a car has way more computer code inside it than a massive flying airplane?

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Yep. Flying high in the sky is mostly just empty space. But driving on the ground is super unpredictable, with pedestrians, bicycles, stray animals, and other cars everywhere. So it takes a massive computer brain to do it safely.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Okay, that makes sense. But what if we combine them? What if a car could just fly right over all that traffic? Mia in Los Angeles specifically asked about flying cars.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Mia, you are in luck, because this is the absolute coolest part. Meet the Kleinvision Air Car, a real flying car built by brilliant engineers in Slovakia.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

A real flying car, like in a sci-fi movie? Is it a helicopter or does it look like a regular car?

SPEAKER_00 7:49

It is a sleek sports car that literally transforms. It has four wheels and a regular body, but there's a giant propeller hidden right on the back.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

How does it actually fly? Do wings just pop out of the doors or something?

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Yes, pretty much. In less than three minutes, the tail slides backward and huge wings unfold to a wingspan of 27 feet.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

27 feet? That's as long as a whole school bus just sticking out of a sports car.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Exactly! It climbs all the way to 10,000 feet in the air, and it flies at an incredible 155 miles per hour.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

That is so fast! And when you land at the airport, you just fold the wings up and drive it home on the highway.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Exactly! You don't even need a taxi. It costs around $800,000, and they plan to start delivering them to lucky buyers in 2026.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

$800,000. I better start saving my weekly allowance right now.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

It might take a while, but even regular self-driving cars on the ground are completely changing the world.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Why do we want them so badly anyway? Humans are pretty good drivers most of the time.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

We are, but humans get sleepy on long road trips. We get distracted by our phones or the radio, and our physical reaction time isn't perfect. How fast do we react when something goes wrong? The average human driver takes about 0.7 seconds to one and a half seconds just to realise they need to step on the brakes.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

That sounds fast, but at highway speeds you travel a long way in one second. What about a computer?

SPEAKER_00 9:32

A lidar sensor never gets tired. It scans the entire road around it 10 to 30 times every single second.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

So it spots danger almost instantly before a human would even notice.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Right. Plus, humans cannot see well in the dark. But an Ousta lidar sensor can detect a matte black car at night from 150 metres away.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

150 metres? That's about one and a half football fields in total darkness. I would definitely crash into that.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Haha, exactly. Computers don't need streetlights to see. They don't get distracted by cool billboards, and they never, ever blink.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

That is wild. I think I want a self-driving car right now. Alright, Finn, time for the quiz.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Are you ready?

SPEAKER_01 10:21

I think so. Lay it on me.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

First question. What does LIDAR stand for? Next one. How many data points can a top LIDAR scan per second? Question three. Who was the aerospace engineer who made a self-driving van in the 1980s? Here's number four. Roughly how many lines of code are in a modern car? Last question, what is the name of the real flying car built in Slovakia? Great job! Let's see how you did. The first answer is light detection and ranging. For question two, over 2.6 million points per second. Number three, the answer is Ernst Dickmann's. Question four, about 100 million lines of code. And the final answer is the Klein Vision Air Car.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Wow! From a chunky 5-ton van in the 80s to sleek cars that literally grow wings and fly. Engineering is just incredibly awesome.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

It really is. It makes you wonder what kind of wild machines we will be driving or flying 20 years from now.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Hopefully something I can actually afford to buy.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

If you loved learning about the amazing flying air car today, please give us a five-star review. Just scroll down on your podcast app and tap the five stars.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Yeah, tap those stars. Oh, and don't forget to check out our site kidopoly.com. We have tons of fun learning games and activities there.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

It's true! Head over to our site kidopy.com for lots more cool stuff to explore. And if you want a shout out on the show or just want to say hi, send us an email at hello at kidopoly.com.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

We would love to hear from you and put your name in an episode.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

See you next time on Science Is Not Boring. Bye everyone!