In Hawaii, some teachers are taking a six-day class to learn how to code driverless cars, in a first of its kind program that could become a part of the curriculum in Hawaii.

Teachers are learning the basics of coding, but the language is the same as what’s being used to program the same driverless cars that are currently on, or one day will be on, roads across the United States and all over the world.

​The course is being taught by Sumil Thapa, who is an engineer for a Hawaii-based engineering consultant called Oceanit. One day, Thapa taught the teachers how to program their cars to “drive into a mini garage, sense the light, back up out of the garage and then give out the light reading.”

According to Thapa, South Korea, which made coding mandatory for all students starting next year, served as the inspiration behind starting this new course.

“We work with business partners in Korea and they told us they would be implementing this so we thought it would be a great idea to bring to Hawaii,” Thapa says through an article from HawaiiNewsNow.com.

Oceanit is hopeful that in the future, it will be able to teach a thousand teachers how to code driverless cars.

Some of the teachers in the program, like Terri Holck, are a part of group of teachers that is using code to program driverless cars for future learning in the classroom.

Holck says that they are “hoping to develop curriculum that ties the coding with the car in to what teachers are already teaching” for subjects such as social studies, language arts, and music.

Speaking about the learning process for the teachers, Holck adds, “it's a lot of fun when it works and it's frustrating when it doesn't.”