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<p class="MsoNormal">Hello,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I pulled the article about the blind man inventing cruise control from the long email message I recently sent out.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Thank you Seton.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">See below.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I lived in Michigan between 1971 and 1977 and never heard of this accomplished individual.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">John<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:center">
<b><span style="font-size:31.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:white;mso-ligatures:none">The blind man who invented cruise Control</span></b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:white;mso-ligatures:none"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ligatures:none">Engineers are exceptionally skilled at designing products that assist people who are disabled. But it’s not often that
we see a disabled person engineering for those who are able-bodied.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ligatures:none">While millions of people use cruise control every day, many wouldn’t know that it was invented by a blind engineer.
His name was Ralph Teetor.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ligatures:none">When he was five-years-old, he was blinded in an accident involving a knife. He then suffered from sympathetic ophthalmia
— the other eye went blind as a result of the trauma to the first.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ligatures:none">Ralph had a knack for engineering from an early age. He would tinker with parts in his father’s workshop, from ten-years-old.
He developed a talent for feeling mechanical objects and designing parts despite his disability. His hands had become his eyes. He believed he could have a future in engineering.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><img width="314" height="221" style="width:3.2708in;height:2.302in" id="Picture_x0020_2" src="cid:image001.png@01D9CF66.5822A6A0" alt="Men looking at a machine
Description automatically generated"></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ligatures:none"> Source:
Smithsonian Magazine<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ligatures:none">After high school, many universities refused his applications based on his disability. Nonetheless, he eventually got
enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania in the mechanical engineering department.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ligatures:none">He graduated from university and went to work in the U.S. Navy, where he performed engineering maintenance on warship
steam turbines. After leaving the Navy, his father and three of his uncles recruited Ralph for their piston ring production company named Perfect Circle. He eventually became the President of the company and tinkered away on his own small projects too.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ligatures:none">He also became the President of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ligatures:none">During World War 2, war rationing forced motorists to drive 35 miles-per-hour so that they could save on gas. Consequently,
Ralph began work on a mechanism that could assist motorists in sticking to one speed during a commute, without having to regulate it themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ligatures:none">In 1948, the ‘Speedostat’ was born. A decade later, they finally finished engineering a prototype that could confidently
be used in vehicles.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ligatures:none">The first prototype included a vacuum-driven piston capable of stopping the gas pedal from being pushed far enough.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ligatures:none">Nonetheless, true cruise control would have to keep the driver at a constant speed, not just slow it down. That’s when
Ralph added a ‘speed lock’ mechanism with the help of an electromagnetic motor. Upon the tapping of the breaks, the speed lock would be canceled out.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ligatures:none">By 1958, Chrysler wanted the Speedostat in their cars and started adding it as an option to their luxury cars. By the
1960s, all General Motors’ Cadillacs had it – and its name changed to ‘cruise control.’ Then in 1973, when the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decided to stop selling oil to the United States due to political factors at the time,
cruise control was lauded as an oil-conserving savior.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ligatures:none">Ralph Teetor’s legacy proves that despite disability, engineers can defy the odds and create something that completely
revolutionizes technology and improves lives. It shows that anyone can overcome a setback and still contribute to humankind.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ligatures:none">The invention of cruise control made people wonder how much further vehicles could be automated at the time. Fast forward
to today, and we are on the verge of driverless cars.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><img width="480" height="360" style="width:5.0in;height:3.75in" id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image002.jpg@01D9CF66.5822A6A0" alt="A person in a car
Description automatically generated"></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ligatures:none"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ligatures:none">Works Cited<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ligatures:none">“The Inventor of Cruise Control Couldn’t See.” <i>YouTube</i>, 31 July 2018, youtu.be/298Rb9wNwMg.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-ligatures:none">Sears, David. “The Sightless Visionary Who Invented Cruise Control.” <i>Smithsonian.com</i>, Smithsonian Institution,
8 Mar. 2018, </span><o:p></o:p></p>
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