A team made up of four ASU students won a top prize in an international technology competition on July 13.
Team Note-Taker, comprised of engineering students David Hayden, Michael Astrauskas and Shashank Srinivas, and industrial design student Qian Yan, placed second for their device in the Microsoft Imagine Cup World Finals.The team developed a device, the Note-Taker, that helps students with visual impairments in note-taking. The Note-Taker consists of a custom-designed camera that is a connected to a tablet PC.
John Black, who mentors the team and works in the Center for Cognitive Ubiquitous Computing, said team member David Hayden, who is legally blind, developed the original idea for the device.
“I suggested that we get a camcorder and a flat-panel computer, and that was kind of the initial idea that he and I kind of brainstormed,” Black said. “Then he took it to the next level ... he said, ‘I’d like to go electronic the entire way.’”
They then developed a prototype that included a split-screen image on the tablet. One half of the screen showed video that the camera was capturing, and the other half was a space where a student can write out notes.
After the idea for a note-taking device originated, the Note-Taker was further developed by the team in the CUbiC. The team also applied for and received a grant through the National Science Foundation that helped fund their endeavor.
Michael Astrauskas, an electrical engineering senior, has been working for the team for almost two years. He said when the team first started to work on the Note-Taker, there was no intent on entering it in any competition.
“When I started none of us had even heard of the Imagine Cup,” he said.
The team quickly found out about the Microsoft Imagine Cup, which is a competition that recognizes student innovation.
Last year, Team Note-Taker entered in the competition in a category that required teams to use tablet PCs to improve educational access.
“It seemed like a perfect fit for our project,” Astrauskas said.
The team won first place in the competition, and further developed the Note-Taker before entering it in this year’s competition.
Black said the team’s success wasn’t very surprising, and that changes they made to the Note-Taker over time added to their success.
“Each one of them is good as a student, but as a team they are outstanding,” Black said. “Because they work together so well, and because they developed a dynamite solution, I’m not surprised we won.”
Astrauskas said he was “very surprised and pleased” about the team’s placement in this year’s Imagine Cup World Finals.
“I was really impressed with how the mix of different majors worked together,” he said. “Interdisciplinary teams can really work together.”
Now, the team hopes to further develop the Note-Taker and eventually commercialize it. In order to do that, Black said there is more work that needs to be done.
“The project is not over yet,” he said. “We still have things that we need to do to prepare the students for the next thing.”
Reach the reporter at katherine.torres@asu.edu
