Final Day

 

 

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I am immensely sad to see Grace Hopper come to an end. These past few days have been transformative for my major, career, and self-confidence. Never before have I been surrounded by so many women in all shapes, sizes, colors, interests, and backgrounds. Still, we were all united by our common passion in a field that often doesn’t love us in return. This conference exposed me to thousands of women trying to carve space out for themselves in the tech field, encouraging me to join them in doing the same. I met hundreds of women with similar interests as me, and many more who were different. Grace Hopper was unique in that it surrounded me with women who not only wanted to hear what I was interested in, but also wanted to encourage me to forge on. Grace Hopper has re-affirmed for me that technology is where I want to be, and that I want the wonderful women who I met over these past few days to be my coworkers.

 

Self Driving Car

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4 googleX engineers explained how they approached engineering the self driving car from a variety of perspectives, from mechanical engineering to software to product management to networks. In a surprisingly comprehendible presentation about some of the most cutting edge technology to amateurs in the field, they explained the numerous considerations and problems they had to solve. One particular example they posed was the car driving in snow–it would have to be able to distinguish what type of snow is on the ground, whether its fresh or frozen, etc. It would have to be designed to keep the inside warm based on the temperature as well as how much snow a passenger might bring in (comfort is important).

It was a great introduction into the minds of the googleX engineers and provided insight into the design aspect and engineering aspect of such a car. Of course, there is still much, much room for the car to improve as proved by the ending Q&A session where the engineers weren’t able to answer all of the questions with concrete responses, but the existing technology is impressive nevertheless.