SeeSaw

Inspiration

We often take for granted the small pleasures in seeing familiar faces. As computer scientists committed to making a difference for a marginalized community, our team was excited to use the resources of MHacks to make the world a little friendlier for the visually impaired.

What it does

SeeSaw is a mobile app that identifies friends and family of the user. By taking intermittent pictures and comparing the faces to a contact list, the app can tell the user which familiar faces are nearby.

How we built it

We used the Software Development Kit from Microsoft's Cognitive Services Face Recognition to develop the app from a sample skeleton in Android Studio. The smartphone's camera serves as the means of input and the phone's speaker outputs the result.

Challenges we ran into

Being our first Hackathon, our team was apprehensive about getting started. We had minimal experience with API's, Android Development, and just selecting a project. In addition, we began developing in Java for an Android phone, but the phone's owner had to leave the Hackathon! We were left with four iPhones and an emulator that could not meet our requirements. Special thanks to Max and Jack, whom testing would have been impossible without.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

To gain a better understanding of the API's interface, we implemented a driver program in Python before starting our app. In all honesty, our proudest accomplishment is probably the fact that we made it through the whole Hacking process. Though it's our first legitimate project, we were excited to get behind a meaningful idea and take all the way to the demo.

What we learned

Our team learned plenty about Android App Development and using professional API's, but overall, we learned how to put together a team project at a Hackathon! Before Friday, none of us could have guessed that we would have made an app that could provide facial recognition support for those in need. In addition, we learned that reaching out for help is especially valuable in an environment like MHacks, where people are brilliant, interested, and just plain friendly.

What's next for SeeSaw

Our team sees potential for our app to analyze video feeds in real time and be implemented into devices even more convenient than a smartphone. Overall, we hope that SeeSaw is one of many steps in the field of Accessibility Technologies that aim to provide people with more independence and community engagement.