ASA (artificial sensory assistance)

real life application
testing our model on real-time data
Illustration for our project

Inspiration

Grown up in Vietnamese versions of favelas, our group struggles with things that are often taken for granted; even going to the nearest market place poses a big challenge. Even though we've had it bad, a lot of people have had it worse: one of which was our friend's grandpa, a blind veteran. He is completely dependent on his children and grandkids for basic, daily tasks; compared to him, our struggles seemed light work. The image of countless others being in the same situation has inspired our group to create an assistance tool which eases the struggles that blind people experiences everyday.

What it does

In the past, people's eyes, ears, and mouth were irreplaceable; now with the help of modern technology, the horizon is bright. Through the cutting-edge technology of YOLOv8 and the plentiful pyttsx3 archives, we've built a machine that could detect objects and safeguard the user in the nick of time.

Challenges we ran into

Of course, our project wasn't always smooth sailing. Despite moving away from the favelas in the latter parts of our childhood, we were not as exposed to computers as much as our same-generation counterparts. Another major problem we realized when we first started our project was how expensive the tools were. Although they are not "relatively costly", it was still out of the measly savings we had as children. Both these problems were eventually bypass by pure dedication and hardwork, sprinkled with a bit of luck; it is safe to say that our road to this product was not an easy one.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Making this product was not at all easy. Although it is important to acknowledge the skill and dedication involved, it is very apparent that the thing that held this boat together was our teamwork. Being childhood friends, it is an understatement to say that our bond is unbreakable; however, at times of this project, it was to be questioned whether our teamwork was as potent as we thought. No matter what, we powered through. It may be something that is often overlooked, but to us, our teamwork was the main reason why we could showcase our product today, and is something that we are very proud of; we see it as an achievement to have powered through despite the tides turning against us.

What we learned

"Patience is a virtue": a quote that was really challenged when we tackled this challenge. It was the repetition of trying to figure out mistakes in the jungle of code that almost ran our head into the wall. Nevertheless, we slowly became more "zen" and accepted that struggles are a part of every project, which has to be overcome in a logical manner.