UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – A group of students in the Penn State School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science won second place in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Science (IEEE CS) Global Student Challenge for High-Impact Technology Solutions. The students were awarded this honor for their work on the National Science Foundation Expeditions-in-Computing Project “Visual Cortex on Silicon.”
The global competition challenged students to solve a real-world problem using at least one of the technologies listed in the IEEE CS 2022 Report. The computer science and engineering students developed a vision system that helps the visually impaired pick objects in a grocery shop with the aid of a tactile glove (haptic glove) and a virtual-reality headset connected to a vision-processing server.
Supervised by Distinguished Professor Vijay Narayanan and Kevin Irick, CEO of SiliconScapes, the students are a mixture of both undergraduate and graduate students that worked on the Haptic Glove team at the Microsystems Design Lab.
“Winning the challenge has increased visibility of the project,” said Gus Smith, a member of the student team. “Our motivations aren't just to advance the hardware and software behind assistive technology — we are also focused on actively helping the community who needs these assistive technologies. Success in a competition like this helps to show the world what we're doing, and gives us greater visibility to the community who would benefit most from the glove.”
Smith added that without the connection to the visually impaired community, they would have no way of knowing if the work they are doing is helping.