Comenius Scholar Highlight: Apollo Fernandez '28

The Comenius Independent Study Program offers Merle-Smith Campus sophomores, juniors, and seniors the opportunity to pursue their interests through self-directed research and creative work, showcasing critical thinking, curiosity, and a passion for learning within the Moravian Academy community.

In his Comenius Project, Apollo Fernandez ’28 explored the development of self-driving cars and neural networks, with a focus on artificial intelligence in vehicles, car safety, and the future outlook of transportation technology. Alongside his research, he built a mini self-driving car using a Raspberry Pi and additional components on a custom 3D-printed frame he designed.

His work included training the vehicle for different durations and recording how effectively it navigated a test track. By collecting and analyzing this data, he examined how training time impacted performance and navigation outcomes in his model.

Through this hands-on experimentation, Apollo combined research and engineering to better understand how autonomous systems learn and operate. His work highlights the connection between artificial intelligence development and real-world applications in transportation safety.

Apollo’s project provides an insightful exploration of how self-driving technology and machine learning may significantly improve road safety in the future, and he concluded that it could save thousands of lives.