FingerStellar

Inspiration

Astronauts can face emergency situations in space and may need to use important gestures to find their way out of them. Even with the high-tech space suits, there are also many instances where the helmet visors get fogged up, and astronauts’ vision or hearing gets impaired.

What it does

Fingerstellar is a clever solution to help astronauts communicate with each other even when there are unexpected obstacles in the way. Our camera scanners can quickly and accurately distinguish between hand gestures and communicate their meaning to the rest of the team. Once the gesture is identified, it uses gesture-to-speech to broadcast the desired message in a clear manner.

How we built it

We worked with a variety of programming languages and software including: Python, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, MediaPipe, Django, Web camera, Canva and Figma

Challenges we ran into

One of our main challenges was calculating a semi-strict boundary to create customized hand gestures that could be recognized by the camera via hand tracking points. This involved a lot of maths and rigorous testing to determine what the best range for each point would be to accurately determine the hand gesture. Another major challenge that we faced was using Django for the first time, there was definitely a learning curve as many things were familiar but also many things were formatted differently. We had to try an merge our knowledge to integrate the backend with the frontend UI.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of the final product that we were able to create, after having to pivot several times. Each member was able to contribute to their strengths, as well as being able to learn new skills and work with new programs.

What we learned

This was a really collaborative group with very different technical backgrounds and skills, that worked well together to create a prototype of our vision. We all learned a lot of new technical skills, working with different languages and software, and from each other.

What's next for FingerStellar

FingerStellar definitely has the opportunity to expand this project so that we can identify, recognize, and convey even more different hand signals in space. We were also interested in researching more about the potential ways to incorporate other body languages, like reading facial expressions, to help communicate with others. We are interested in finding ways that the existing safety precautions in place, can be improved in creative ways.

Built With

• css
• django
• html
• javascript
• mediapipe
• python