Project Mentor: Professor Cristi Vasile, Mechanical Engineering & Mechanics
2026 Impact Fellow:
Charlotte Reid '28
Project Description:
Imagine designing and building a tabletop city, complete with roads, buildings, traffic lights, and signs, then watching miniature autonomous racecars navigate it on their own. That’s the heart of this Impact Fellow project led by Prof. Cristian-Ioan Vasile in Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics. You’ll help create a modular, easy-to-assemble testbed where researchers can safely stress-test self-driving software in realistic traffic: busy intersections, bad weather, low light, faded markings, even potholes. You’ll move through the full engineering cycle, from CAD design and fabrication (laser cutting, 3D printing, power tools) to programming in ROS 2 and the CARLA simulator, all the way to a live demonstration. The design side matters too, with input from art, architecture, and design faculty.
The work has real-world stakes. This year’s goals include building a steering-wheel teleoperation setup to develop and test driving assistance for people with visual impairments, and deploying cutting-edge risk-aware planning and control methods on the racecars, with results headed for a research paper at a top robotics or control conference. The testbed could even recreate accident-prone spots around Bethlehem to help make autonomous vehicles safer for everyone, from pedestrians on campus to emergency responders. Whether you’re into mechanical design, electronics, coding, machine learning, or project management, there’s a place for you on this team. Students from CS, ECE, and ME are all welcome, you’ll work alongside the AIR Lab community, and there’s travel funding to help present your work at conferences.