Gemstone Team Research

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/9070

The Gemstone Program at the University of Maryland is a unique multidisciplinary four-year research program for selected undergraduate honors students of all majors. Under guidance of faculty mentors and Gemstone staff, teams of students design, direct and conduct significant research, often but not exclusively exploring the interdependence of science and technology with society. Gemstone students are members of a living-learning community comprised of fellow students, faculty and staff who work together to enrich the undergraduate experience. This community challenges and supports the students in the development of their research, teamwork, communication and leadership skills. In the fourth year, each team of students presents its research in the form of a thesis to experts, and the students complete the program with a citation and a tangible sense of accomplishment.

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    A Haptic System for Depicting Mathematical Graphics for Students with Visual Impairments
    (2016-05) Bajcsy, Andrea; Bateman, Amelia; Cohen, Alexa; Horton, Emily; Jennings, Matthew; Khattar, Anish; Kuo, Ryan; Lee, Felix; Lim, Meilin; Migasiuk, Laura; Renganathan, Ramkesh; Toth, Bryan; Zhang, Amy; Zhao, Oliver; Oliveira, Márcio
    When teaching students with visual impairments educators generally rely on tactile tools to depict visual mathematical topics. Tactile media, such as embossed paper and simple manipulable materials, are typically used to convey graphical information. Although these tools are easy to use and relatively inexpensive, they are solely tactile and are not modifiable. Dynamic and interactive technologies such as pin matrices and haptic pens are also commercially available, but tend to be more expensive and less intuitive. This study aims to bridge the gap between easy-to-use tactile tools and dynamic, interactive technologies in order to facilitate the haptic learning of mathematical concepts. We developed an haptic assistive device using a Tanvas electrostatic touchscreen that provides the user with multimodal (haptic, auditory, and visual) output. Three methodological steps comprise this research: 1) a systematic literature review of the state of the art in the design and testing of tactile and haptic assistive devices, 2) a user-centered system design, and 3) testing of the system’s effectiveness via a usability study. The electrostatic touchscreen exhibits promise as an assistive device for displaying visual mathematical elements via the haptic modality.
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    A navigation and object location device for the blind
    (2009-05) Caperna, Steve; Cheng, Christopher; Cho, Junghee; Fan, Victoria; Luthra, Avishkar; O'Leary, Brendan; Sheng, Jansen; Sun, Andrew; Stearns, Lee; Tessler, Roni; Wong, Paul; Yeh, Jimmy; Chellappa, Rama; Tang, Cha-Min
    Team Vision's goal is to create a navigation system for the blind. To achieve this, we took a multi-pronged approach. First, through surveys, we assessed the needs of the blind community and developed a system around those needs. Then, using recent technology, we combined a global positioning system (GPS), inertial navigation unit (INU), computer vision algorithms, and audio and haptic interfaces into one system. The GPS and INU work together to provide walking directions from building to building when outdoors and the computer vision algorithms identify and locate objects such as signs and landmarks, both indoors and outdoors. The speech-based interface ties the GPS, INU, and computer vision algorithms together into an interactive audio-based navigation device. Finally, the haptic interface provides an alternative intuitive directional guidance system. The resulting system guides users to speci ed buildings and to important objects such as cellular telephones, wallets, or even restroom or exit signs.