Atheia

Atheia is the all-in-one glove that, using state of the art computer vision and a mobile app, makes intelligent observations about the wearer’s surroundings. It is meant to be a low-cost visual aid for the blind. The glove is operated solely through voice commands received by the app and a single button on the index finger of the glove. All the user has to do is press the glove button, ask a question, and then listen to the response given by the app. Atheia has 5 features: the ability to describe the environment (“Scan”), read out text (“Text”), make inferences about the user’s surroundings (“Observations”), search for items in real-time (“Search”), and report when and where it made each detection (“Last seen”). Why is such a device needed? At the start of our project, we interviewed dozens of people who suffer from mild to severe blindness about their struggles and interactions with visual aids. Visual aid technologies are meant to give their users a greater degree of independence; however, current devices are either too expensive or do not offer the range of features needed to be used on a day-to-day basis. Due to COVID-19, we were forced to stop testing the Atheia in-person with our target audience. We are in contact with the National Industries for the Blind (NIB) and have plans to continue demonstrating our project later this year. But as of now, we are working with MIT’s Humanistic Codesigner Initiative on technical feedback (i.e PCB Design, minimizing the design). We have also received $5000 from the Maximus Foundation and we are using the funding for ordering parts and creating the rest of our physical devices.

We are a group of juniors from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST) that met through a hackathon. Eugene Choi (TJHSST 2022) I am 16 years old and have an avid passion for Computer Vision because of its potential to automate and improve mundane tasks. Outside of academics, I am a competitive swimmer for my school and like to spend my time video editing. Recently I have been getting into chess and playing online chess against Raffu. Currently, I have won 5 games against him and he has only won once. (He/Him) Irfan Nafi I am 16 years old and have spent much of middle and high school working on robotics, electronics, and software projects. I love spending time teaching younger students about programming and have worked with multiple outreach programs in my community to do so. In my free time I listen to news, trade on the stock market, and study geopolitical relationships. In the future, I hope to pursue software engineering and start a startup in Silicon valley. (He/Him) Pranav Ravella I am 16 years old and I am a cybersecurity and machine learning research enthusiast. In addition to my current research in the intersection of those fields and the biomedical industry, I play basketball at a competitive level in my state. Also, because of my tall and slender build, I am ranked fencing competitor in my free time. Furthermore, I love to use the research that I have contributed to and my personal hobbies to assist my community as a servant leader with over a thousand hours of community service. (He/Him) Raffu Khondaker I am 17 years old. I have spent much of my high school years conducting research projects on the applications of deep learning in assisting people in their day-to-day lives. Outside of academics, I enjoy reading and illustrating comics for my family and friends. I also enjoy playing chess against Eugene Choi and teaching him how to actually play the game. (He/Him)