California second graders design innovative technological sign-language interpreter

From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

A team of North County second-graders is among the country’s most innovative budding scientists.

The students, who developed an idea for a technological sign-language interpreter, have been named regional winners in a nationwide science competition that regularly attracts thousands of student entries.

The ExploraVision program asks students in kindergarten through 12th grade to devise projects using future technologies that could exist in 20 years. Jessica Jiang, Jordan Sider, Ryan Ulmer and Ariana Williams of Willow Grove Elementary in the community of Santa Luz, came up with the idea of a sign-language interpreter that would use a system of electrodes and loudspeakers to literally allow deaf people to “speak.”

Students are required to research a technology, understand how it works and project it 20 years into the future.

Under the Willow Grove team’s project, electrodes on a hearing-impaired person’s fingers would sense hand movements from sign language and use the information to create audible words.

ExploraVision, which is sponsored by Toshiba and the National Science Teachers Association, is designed to encourage students to combine their imaginations with the tools of science to develop innovative ideas. The program, in its 18th year, received 4,550 team entries, representing nearly 14,000 students from across the United States and Canada.

The Willow Grove students were the winning team at the K-3 level for Region 6, which consists of 13 Western states including Arizona, Colorado, Oregon and Washington. They are among 24 regional winning teams that will move on to the national phase of the competition.

An awards ceremony for the Willow Grove team will be held at 9:15 a.m. today at the school.

Teacher Stacey Lamb is the team’s coach. She led a team from Adobe Bluffs Elementary in Rancho Peñasquitos to a first-place finish in the national competition in 2007.