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What do you get when you combine automobiles with location-aware computing? A winning team of students from the University of Michigan is hitting the road in a cross-country trip to find out!

In a class this spring entitled "Cloud Computing in the Commute," six teams developed applications to run on the Ford SYNC platform, an in-car computer with always-on connectivity. The teams each developed social networking and transportation apps, such as a caravan tracking system, a ride sharing co-coordinator, and a location-aware performance tracker.

Find out what happens when the rubber (and the software prototypes) meet the road...

I got a chance to meet up with the American Journey 2.0 team at Northwestern, their first stop, in Evanston, IL. I had a great time meeting everyone, the students and Ford engineers, learning about their applications, and picking their brains to find out where they see this technology heading. To get a feel for how it went, check out their photo set on Facebook, and mine on Flickr, and if you're coming to the Maker Faire Bay Area, be sure to catch up with the team there!

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Apparently in need of a good road-trip stretch, according to its tweet, AJ the Ford Fiesta checked into Yo Momma Yoga.

"It was an auto-check-in," explained T.J. Giuli, research engineer at Ford Infotronics, at a Tweetup at Bookends Cafe in Boulder, Colorado, the second official stop on A.J.'s cross-country tour. "AJtheFiesta" is actually one in a caravan of three cars, carrying five students from the University of Michigan, six Ford engineers and researchers, and one Microsoft engineer. They had come to a stop, and pulled in at a Best Western hotel, which happened to be located near the yoga studio. "If there are several locations that come up, it asks you to select one," said Giuli. If there's only one, it automatically selects that location and "checks in," via location-based app Foursquare, and a tweet is sent to the car's Twitter feed with its latest 10-20.

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This Thursday, the American Journey 2.0 team visited Stanford University, their final destination before heading to Maker Faire this weekend. While on campus, the team had an opportunity to take AJtheFiesta on a quick road rally around campus, and take in a talk by Human Computer Interaction professor Clifford Nass. I caught up with them at the Center for Automotive Research, the mechanical engineering department dedicated to designing next generation automotive systems and interfaces.

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Team Bobcat and the Ford Fiesta caravan arrived at Maker Faire on Friday, concluding their long trek from Michigan to California. Since their class began, only a few months ago, the team designed, developed, and field-tested a project of their own invention which took them on a journey both cross-country, and into the world of professional software development. Along they way, they learned about how to design interfaces for fast-moving vehicles (learning quite a bit about how their technology works in the field), tweaked their project to add handy features, and also managed to take some time to enjoy the experience of traveling across the country.

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A 2010 graduate of the University of Michigan, Ciccone has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and will soon be moving to San Diego to join Qualcomm, a wireless telecommunications research and development company, as a software engineer. Ciccone currently resides in Shelby Township, Mich., where he likes to spend time doing Web design, programming and mobile application development.

Hockey is a new University of Michigan graduate with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. A native of South Lyon, Mich., Hockey moonlights as a writer of ground operations software for a small student-designed satellite mission, the Radio Aurora Explorer. He enjoys spending time with his family and friends and is looking forward to getting married this summer.

Park is studying for her master’s in Human Computer Interaction at the University of Michigan and worked as an undergraduate researcher at Sungshin Women’s University in Seoul, Korea, and the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Her long-term goal is to design and build systems and support tools that can help people better interact with their electronic devices. Seoul is Park’s hometown.

Phillips is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan, holding a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. He works as a simulation designer and programmer at the university’s Human-automation Interaction Cognition Laboratory. Phillips grew up in Bay City, Mich.

John Ciccone, Collin Hockey, Sangmi Park and Joe Phillips make up Team Bobcat, the student think tank that came up with Caravan Track, the winning application of the American Journey 2.0 open innovation research project between Ford and the University of Michigan.

Caravan Track allows a cluster of vehicles traveling together to track each other along the journey. The application was installed in a 2011 Ford Fiesta for the ultimate test drive to the 2010 Maker Faire in California.

Joseph Rork is an IT architect with Ford’s In-Vehicle IT Research and Strategy team. He is responsible for exploring opportunities for integrating emerging advanced computing technologies into future Ford products.

"My love of computers came first, and then came a fascination with how to make them interact with cars," says Rork, who helped develop the in-car technologies seen in the 2009 Ford Transit Connect Family One concept, and most recently the 2011 Ford Fiesta featured in the American Journey 2.0 road trip to the 2010 Maker Faire in California. “My unconventional path has taken me from programming to telecommunications to wireless networking to mobility, which then led me to the ultimate mobile device – the vehicle."

A southeastern Michigan native, Rork studied computer science, management and psychology at the University of Michigan, Dearborn.

Joseph Ross is a solution developer with Ford’s Information Technology team. He joined the company four years ago, and is responsible for a variety of application and framework development for the Ford SYNC® platform.

“I’ve always loved technology and since I – and so many others – spend so much time driving, I wanted to help find ways to use technology on the road,” says Ross. “My job gives me the opportunity to explore new technologies and how to bring them to the vehicle. It’s been exciting to interact with companies outside the industry such as Pandora and Stitcher.”

Ross has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Mich.

Mark Schunder is a senior research engineer with the Ford Research and Advanced Engineering Infotronics group. He is responsible for studying consumer device usage and developing unique software solutions and theories for how consumers can access information in the vehicle.

Schunder is one of the lead designers of the original research project that introduced the idea of mobile software connectivity to Ford SYNC, playing a significant role in launching aspects of the SYNC Traffic, Directions and Information application and the new SYNC AppLink gateway.

“For the past five years, I have been contributing near- and long-term SYNC product solutions and it’s been exciting identifying emerging trends in the marketplace and creating innovative products that bring more connectivity to the car,” says Schunder.

Schunder has both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Michigan - Dearborn.

Tom Alexander is a software developer with Ford’s Information Technology SYNC Proof of Concept team. He joined the company in 2009, tasked with helping develop new software concepts for the SYNC® platform.

“I’ve always had a love of cars – especially the technology inside the cars,” says Alexander, who grew up doing auto repairs in the garage with his dad. “When Ford introduced SYNC, that sent my interest in vehicle technology over the top.

“Now, I work for Ford on a team that thinks of new ideas for SYNC, codes them and demos them in a short period of time,” adds Alexander. “It’s a really cool position.”

A 2008 graduate of Michigan State University, Alexander holds a bachelor’s degree in Science and Computer Science from the College of Engineering.

Opening Ford’s research doors to tech-savvy college students is a dream come true for Ford research engineer TJ Giuli. Since joining Ford’s Infotronics Research & Advanced Engineering team in 2005, Giuli has been a strong proponent of the open innovation model, tapping minds at universities and other organizations outside the automotive industry for the next best idea for in-vehicle connectivity and infotronics.

One of Giuli’s latest open innovation projects is American Journey 2.0, which paired up Ford and University of Michigan students who were challenged to build a new class of social networking apps for the vehicle during a 12-week course. The winning app made its way into a Ford Fiesta for the ultimate test drive to California for the 2010 Maker Faire, the largest do-it-yourself event of its kind.

As the group and technical leader of Ford’s Infotronics Research & Advanced Engineering team, the birthplace of Ford SYNC, K. Venkatesh Prasad is Ford’s “What’s Next” guy, responsible for the research, architecture, standards, applications development and vehicle system integration of electrical, electronics and embedded software technologies.

In the early 1960s he was just a small boy in Chennai, India, who was fascinated with electricity. As a precocious five-year-old undeterred by his parents’ heed to not play with wires, Prasad conducted his first experiment with electrons by plugging two wet shoelaces into a 220-volt power outlet.

“That shocking lesson stays etched in my mind today,” he says.

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