For her 7th-grade science fair project, this student created ArtiVision, a system that can read aloud text from labels, letters, and more on demand. She participated in the Arizona state science fair and was awarded a Broadcom Coding with CommitmentTM award.
Suhana, entering the 8th grade, already knows that science, technology, engineering, and math are tools she can use to solve everyday problems for herself, her family, and her community. Last year, Suhana placed first in Computer Science at the Arizona Science and Engineering Fair (AzSEF) with a coding project designed to improve daily life for people with vision problems. Her ArtiVision project was recognized with a Broadcom Coding with CommitmentTM award.
Suhana’s 7th-grade project was her first coding project, but she is not new to the world of science fair. At her K-12 charter school in Arizona, the annual science fair is open to students in grades 5-12, but participation is not required. Suhana participated in 5th, 6th, and 7th grade. Each year, she did a science project addressing a personal or community problem.
In 5th grade, having observed how much time it took for her parents to take care of their swimming pool, she designed a pool monitor to automate pool maintenance. In 6th grade, she developed a bicycle mobile charger that powered her phone as she pedaled. “Because of COVID, I had a lot of free time,” Suhana explains. “I started biking a lot with my friends, and my phone would always die.”
For her 7th-grade project, Suhana created ArtiVision, a system that provides on-demand text-to-speech assistance for people with vision problems. ArtiVision is designed to find and “read aloud” whatever text is in its field of view. If the user needs help reading the ingredients on a food label, for example, the system can read the ingredients out loud.
A First Coding Project
Suhana was inspired to create ArtiVision after seeing people struggle with everyday reading tasks at a local senior center where she volunteers. “I saw that people who were visually impaired had issues reading normal scripts or letters from their family,” she explains. She wanted to create “a hands-on device that could [read for them] anytime they want instead of them waiting for someone to help them.”
Suhana has never had a coding class in school and used online resources to teach herself Python for her science fair project. Her ArtiVision prototype connects a small camera, like a webcam, to a Raspberry Pi. The camera takes photos, which are filtered and processed by the Raspberry Pi to isolate the text, which is then converted to speech and read to the user. The system is always ready to read available text and uses voice recognition to know when the user wants assistance. “It’s like clicking a button,” says Suhana. “You say, ‘please read image,’ and it takes a photo of what the camera is in front of, finds any text shown, and reads it out loud.”
The most challenging part of the project, she says, was training the system to improve the machine learning confidence levels. The “breakthrough,” and the most exciting part of the project, was when ArtiVision finally properly recognized her name. “I had struggled to get the machine to read my name,” says Suhana. “I was so happy that day!” ArtiVision currently can read normal print fonts at any size. Suhana says it struggles with calligraphy and cursive, but it is still learning.
Suhana envisions ArtiVision as an affordable solution that someone with vision impairment could carry everywhere and use anytime they needed help reading something. Her prototype demonstrates the potential of ArtiVision. With additional work, she hopes to reduce the form factor, making ArtiVision portable, possibly small enough to be worn on a lanyard or attached to glasses.
In Person at the State Science Fair
Suhana has now participated in the Arizona state science fair three times, but this was her first year to attend in person. (The prior years were virtual during the COVID-19 pandemic.) Being able to attend in person was a much different experience.
Suhana got to meet students from other schools and see the kinds of projects her peers are doing. Suhana and her family all found the state fair inspiring. “The whole experience was awesome, actually, seeing more than 600 kids with their projects and so many different ideas,” says Ruchita, Suhana’s mother.
At the science fair, Suhana had the opportunity to demonstrate ArtiVision to people who are visually impaired and get feedback and insight into their specific day-to-day struggles. These interactions have given her new ideas for extending ArtiVision to help with face and object recognition, gestures, and even color matching.
Suhana and her family didn’t know what to expect at the middle school awards ceremony. Families are alerted to attend if students have won something, but they don’t know what they have won until the night of the ceremony. “These awards started pouring in. That was a magical night,” says Ruchita. “We would not really have anticipated that this project could make such a huge impact. It was really a memorable evening for us.” About Suhana receiving the Broadcom Coding with Commitment award, Ruchita says, “That was 1 out of 600 entries, and she won it. That was really unexpected and an amazing award.”
Ruchita believes that attending the state science fair in person was especially motivating for Suhana. “She is so driven after winning. I’m sure that with all this drive she will do something good next year as well and will motivate other kids.”
Helping Others Participate in Science Fair
In the coming school year, Suhana will be running a Science Fair Prep Club at school to help students stay on track to meet the deadlines involved in doing and submitting a science fair project.
Suhana says her all-time favorite subject is math. Her favorite science is physics. “It’s like pure logic,” she says. “I love pure logic because you can never go wrong with it.” She appreciates the same concreteness in coding, too. “In Python coding, anything that you do has to come from pure logic.”
Suhana enjoys tennis, basketball, dancing, and travel and is interested in studying law. She is Vice President of the middle school newspaper, involved in multiple honor societies and math competitions, and volunteers with My Wish for My Community.
Encouraging Student Coding
To learn more about Broadcom Coding with Commitment and other examples of student coding projects, see Encouraging Students to Learn Basic Coding for a Science Fair Project—Broadcom Coding with Commitment™.
Explore More
For related student science projects in coding, video game creation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, see the following:
For resources to introduce students to coding and physical computing, see:
For other student coding success stories, see:
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