FHS Student Heading to MIT for Autonomous Car Program

Published May 9, 2017

For one Williamson County student, part of the summer will be spent at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology telling unmanned cars how to successfully drive themselves.

Franklin High sophomore Raphael Fortuna was recently accepted into MIT’s Summer Autonomous Car Program and will be spending a month up north programming cars to drive on their own.

“I’m pretty excited about the whole experience,” Fortuna said. “I’m going to gain a lot of knowledge and it’ll be really cool to be a part of that community. I’m glad I can learn more about programming and how to use autonomous vehicles because that’s becoming a pretty big industry.”

Fortuna heard about the program from FHS AP computer science teacher Brent Greene.

“We are going to start an Autonomy I course next year, so he thought this would be a good precursor before we start that program,” Fortuna said.

It was a long process to get into the program. It began with an application in November, then an online course in December after his initial acceptance. From there, Fortuna had to pen a series of essays and answer questions about why he wanted to join the program. He didn’t find out he had been accepted for the summer portion until late April.

Forutna said he’s excited for the experience as he hopes to turn his interest in autonomous vehicles into a profession.

He will fly to Massachusetts in July and stay on MIT’s campus for four full weeks while learning the ins and outs of autonomous cars.

Fewer than 100 students nationwide were accepted into the program, but Fortuna hasn’t been bragging about it.

“I haven’t talked about it too much,” he said. “I’ve only told a few of my friends.”

While he is able to downplay the achievement, his parents have had a tough time containing their excitement.

“They seemed way more excited at the time than I was,” he said. “I was pretty excited, but they were blown away.”