Roads & Transit

Public transit systems are important to urban centers because they help us travel to different places in the city. It doesn’t need anyone to drive them. For example, subways are for everyone and people can just go on it will get you to where you want to go. And because they have a schedule or a map, they have an order they go through so they get to every station and don’t repeat the same stop right after. This shows us that public transit systems are important to urban centers.

Autonomous transit systems are allowed on shabbat because they are automatic, so they don't need a driver that will drive. So it isn’t chillol shabbat. These are allowed on shabbat only if the transit wont go out of the city, because on shabbat you aren’t allowed to go out of the erove. This proves that Autonomous transit systems are allowed on shabbat and some people will argue that it’s not in the spirit of shabbat. So they don’t have to use the autonomous transit system on shabbat.

This robotics task was really fun and interesting because I got to choose what the robot will do and when. I learned that with lots of small action pieces of coding, you could make it do really cool things like sense something in front of the bus, make sounds when it stops, or even recognise colors for the action that you code. This task made me think of how mechanics make actual public transit. How they code it and build the transit to fit and carry passengers. When it will know to stop and sense someone at the door. I really enjoyed this project.

By: Avigayil

Public transit systems are important for urban centers because they provide a method of transportation without the use of a driver. For example, if a person works on the other side of a city, then they have a method of transportation besides driving themself to get to work. This would be especially useful for people without drivers licenses that need to get from one location to another.

Autonomous transit systems aren’t allowed for use on Shabbat for two reasons:

1. The only situation where it would be absolutely necessary to use on a vehicle on Shabbat is during a emergency. But in a emergency, we can do moktzah to save a persons life so an autonomous transit system wouldn’t be necessary in the first place.

2. Also, using an autonomous transit system on Shabbat isn’t really in the spirit of Shabbat whether or not it is allowed.

Therefore, autonomous transit systems aren’t allowed for use on Shabbat.

What I enjoyed about this activity is the creative freedom. For example, if my group wanted to design the road in a certain way, then we’d be able to because the project is completely up to us. This was especially exciting because generally, students don't get to experience much creative freedom in school.

The most challenging part of this project for myself was getting the amount of time for the robot to drive for exactly right. If one of the group members didn’t place the robot at the exact right spot at the beginning every time, then we’d measure the distances wrong and the robot would go off track.

As I worked on my project and observed other people working on their own, I could really see how much effort was put into their projects. And anyone can assume that urban planning for real cities is much more extreme and well thought out then a model version. This really made me appreciate the thought, details, and effort, that goes into urban planning.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed working on this project and I hope that we'll be able to participate in more projects like this in the future.

By: Talia

Public transit systems are important in urban centers because they can help people get around. If people want to go to different places or even go sightseeing, buses and taxis can really help. If we didn't have public transit systems, our cities would be very hard to navigate. I think that it's really useful to have certain buses that go all around the city, or even up and down a road..

I think that autonomous vehicles should not be allowed on Shabbat. If someone would argue that it's the same thing as a shabbat elevator I would argue back that they are wrong. It's not in the spirit of Shabbat to go on buses and move like that. Even if there is not a specific destination you want to go to, I think we shouldn’t do it anyway. I guess it's ok to go on the bus, but to arrive at a new destination is what seems wrong for me. Even though I’ll admit, it would be very nice to have around on Shabbat, I dont think it's ok.

What was one of my favorite parts of this activity was when we started to see cool new things we could program. The different experiments that we did really made me think about how cool this would be to do in real life. Although it would be a lot of work. All three experiments that we did were different and showed how well this would work. But what I found really challenging was how much we needed to work on each experiment. It was a lot of going back and forth, checking the exact details, and making sure it overall worked. This was a really fun project for me!

By: Abby

Public transit systems are important in urban center, because they make transportation much cheaper rather than buying a car instead, which is almost a year worth of savings for a minimum wage job. Another reason why public transit is good for urban areas is that its easier because it avoids traffic jams. They also lower pollution rates by having fewer motorized vehicles on the road.

Autonomous transit systems are allowed on Shabbat, as long as you don’t make a difference to the transit system's route or cause them to use electricity to complete your satisfaction. Mainly you shouldn’t use it unless you don't have access to a synagogue but otherwise you should’nt use it.

What I like most about this activity is that I got to work alone, and got to code which is one of my biggest strengths. Also what I liked about the activity was we got to design a perfect city (in our opinion)and each got to do our things.

This activity changed my overall thought about urban centers, and taught me that there is a lot more than what I thought you had to put into the creation of a city. This also really made me ask a lot of questions and now that we are almost done almost all my questions are answered. This changed my thought of urban planning and now wherever I go I ask myself how did they do this and what was the process.

By:Joshua