UG student awarded for designing, building  American Sign Language translator glove

Josiah Cossiah.

Dean of FET Veryln Klass heaped praises on the students for their excellent performances. She noted that the faculty will continue to take the necessary steps to ensure that it meets the needs of all students who desire to pursue its programmes and engage in such path-breaking work.

Cossiah said communication barriers between deaf-mute individuals and the hearing population due to limited knowledge of sign language causes these individuals to feel frustration, isolation, and societal exclusion. He wanted to find a solution.

“The objective of the project was to create a translator that covers all ASL alphabet letters while maintaining affordability and portability.

The glove functionality is straightforward: the user wears the glove and performs sign language gestures. The glove incorporates five flex sensors, whose resistance increases as it bends, which is used to track the movement of each finger and an MPU 6050 which tracks orientation of the hand,” Cossiah was quoted in the release as saying.

He explained that once the physical assembly of the glove was finished, he mapped the different hand signs of the alphabet. This was done by wearing the glove, forming the different signs and recording the sensor data from each sign formed.

“I remembered there was a past student who did a robotic prosthetic arm and I decided I would do an ankle. I wanted to continue down the same path of helping persons with disabilities.

“It was fun and at times stressful because it was my first time doing something this complex,”  Cossiah said.