Radar-Actuated Lawnmowing Protective Housing; The Influence of Human Behavior upon Tesla Autopilot 3 views

My technical project and my STS research center on human-machine interaction and its impact on safety. Specifically, my technical project seeks to design a safety mechanism that would bring a lawnmower to a stop when particularly a child ends up in the path, while my STS research examines how human factors can impact the effectiveness of safety mechanisms. Therefore, while they differ in their forms, my project and research closely revolve around the various aspects of design. In my technical project, the team designed a mechanism that would automatically stop a lawnmower when it detects a human signature at a certain distance ahead of the mower. We constructed a wooden mock-up as proof of concept without some functions that would be present on an actual lawnmower. The mock-up employs a millimeter sensor as the signal input. When it detects a human signature, a latch is released, and a rail-guided guard is driven by loaded springs into the ground. A stepper motor would then drive a lead screw, which lifts the guard up into the latch and loads the springs, making the system available to be released again. If implemented on an actual lawnmower, certain components would be moved to suitable positions. Additionally, the sensor trigger would be connected to emergency cutoffs to the lawnmower blade and engine, and the retraction would take place upon reignition of the lawnmower, instead of automatically on the mock-up. My STS paper examined how safety features and mechanisms could fail due to inadequate consideration of human factors. Specifically, I drew on the STS framework of User Configuration to argue that certain incorrect assumptions made by the designers of Tesla Autopilot contributed to the motor vehicle collisions that involved vehicles equipped with Autopilot. To support my argument, I discussed investigation reports from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board on two Tesla Autopilot crashes. I also discussed another accident that involved the misuse of otherwise highly effective automation. My STS research was able to influence some of the design choices made for the technical project. During technical analysis, the project team did not consider only technical parameters such as stress, but we also made room for human factors. For example, during our analysis on the guard, our governing load case was if an adult were to kick it, as we believe could happen if they are frustrated with the system. We checked our logic to make sure that our mechanism cannot be overridden so that a lawnmower cannot be started under dangerous circumstances. The STS work therefore made our technical project more robust.

BS (Bachelor of Science)

Safety; Lawnmower; Automation

School of Engineering and Applied Science Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering Technical Advisor: Michael Momot, Jason Forman STS Advisor: Benjamin Laugelli Technical Team Members: Jackson Berry, Mia Bonutti, David Cuyuch, Vincent Hu, Jimmy Sejas, Cole Smith, Averell Stith, Richard Townsley

English

2026-05-07