Pham Thien Tan and Chu Hoang Minh Duc of the Le Hong Phong High School for Gifted Students, came up with the idea after many meetings with deaf students who face difficulties in communications.
The product uses a smart phone to transmit data and doesn’t require the user to sign language.
Tan and Duc’s product looks like ordinary gloves but are able to turn finger movements into language.
“Sensors on the gloves read the hand movements, the elements that make up sign language. When the user makes hand signs, the sensors read the information and transfer it to a chip. The chip then sends the processed information to a smart phone, which emits the sound of the letter corresponding to the hand movement,” Tan explained.
When the product was first tested, Tan and Duc were in the 11th grade. Duc said, “The biggest difficulty was certain technological issues beyond our knowledge at that time. By referring to various sources on the Internet and scientists at several universities we improved our understanding enough to complete our product.”
The talking gloves invented by Tan and Duc have won many awards. Most recently, their glove defeated more than 1,000 other inventions from 78 countries and territories to win fourth prize at an international science and technology research competition in the US.
Vo Manh Hung, a physics teacher at Le Hong Phong High School, has taught the two young men since the early days of their project.
“What I'm proudest of is my students’ humanity and their passion for scientific research. They always want to make something useful for the community, especially for those with disabilities like the deaf and dumb,” Hung said.
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