Those who are disabled, or even are handed a task of transferring data to excel, understand that typing data over and over again can be challenging and time consuming.
With using speech to text software, working on excel can become much more efficient. With this, we can make working on excel become an easy and enjoyable experience
We used python and the speech_recognition library to accomplish this.
One of the more difficult parts of this, surprisingly, was actually installing the speech_recognition library. As mechanical engineering majors, we are not used to doing much programming. But the mentors were able to help us out! From there, it was figuring out how to program python to read in our voice through the microphone which we were able to solve without much issue. We also ran into a mild problem when we realized that python read in our voice as an audio file and not a string, but that was easily fixed with type conversions. One issue that we thought was going to take a while to solve was if python would interpret "16" as the number or the word. However, after a few trial runs, we were able to manipulate our code so that the number version would appear for calculations to be made.
This was our first ever hackathon, but we were able to work on something that we have never even been exposed to in any of our classes. The problems we encountered were able to solved - even if they took a while to think up solutions for. But I am also proud of us being able to keep a low stress environment.
We learned how to use python in a way that is actually applicable to real life. This idea of speech recognition could be used in many other facets besides math calculations. I am really excited to see how we move forward with our idea, but also how we incorporate this idea into other areas of life.
We definitely would like to see more math functions being utilized in here. This is a really simple calculator, but the more functions the merrier. This could definitely use some more fail-safes for incorrectly translated words - especially words that could be easily misinterpreted by the machine. Incorporating actual excel calculations is the next big step - if we were able to type out commands for VLOOKUP for example and speak the inputs in, that would be a big help for the user. Additionally, the text outputted in terminal ideally should be spoken. If a visually impaired person is using this program, they won't be able to read the text that gives them the command of what to say. If the program could be made to interact with the user, that could make a hue difference.
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