Technology

Android Sign Language Interpreting Glove

Android Sign Language Interpreting Glove

It’s hard not to get excited when you see assistive technology like the sign language interpreting Show and Tell Glove from Tel Aviv area makers Oleg Imanilov, Zvika Markfield, and Tomer Daniel. The glove uses a LillyPad Arduino to sample flex sensors, an accelerometer, and gyro into an ADK board that then talks to an Android app that translates sign language and gestures into written text. To improve performance, a neural network is fed gestures manually to compensate for varying hand sizes directly on the handset. They’re still working out the bugs, but the current results are more than encouraging.

Alt.CES: MAKE Team at MakerBot

Alt.CES: MAKE Team at MakerBot

Maker Shed Product Development Mucky-Muck, Marc de Vinck, sent us these phone snaps today of the MAKE team at the MakerBot Industries booth at CES. Tonight, our team found itself at the MakerBot Industries party, too. It was all pizza, PBR, cups o’ quarters, and vintage pinball. Let’s just hope that Bre didn’t get them all drunk and had them make 3D prints they’re going to regret in the morning (the 21st century version of the Xerox machine at the Christmas party).

Foam Carving Robot

Foam Carving Robot

We have covered at least one DIY CNC hot wire cutter before, and commercial versions are manufactured by several companies including Hotwire Direct, Streamline Automation, and FoamLinx. This machine, built in 2006 by students under Dr. René Straßnick at the Technical University of Berlin, has two translational axes and a third, rotational axis consisting of a turntable to which the foam substrate is attached. Parts from an old dot-matrix printer were used to make the Cartesian robot.