A Mask That Reads Your Speech

Doyeon and Chaeyeon, both elementary school students from Korea dream of a world where everyone can live happily, no matter the challenges people faced.

Doyeon explains this dream, “One of our friends has a hearing impairment and since the outbreak of COVID-19 caused everyone to wear facemasks, it has become very difficult for her to understand and communicate with others.”

This made the girls think: what if what was being said was displayed automatically on the outside of someone’s mask? Eager to put this idea into practice, Doyeon and Chaeyeon applied for Samsung Junior SW Cup.

The end product may look simple but the development process involved rounds of trial and error to make the final model. A number of things had to be considered, such as what components should be used, how the parts will be connected and placed evenly without causing discomfort to the user.

“In the Design Thinking section of the competition, we learned how to progress through trial and error and received advice and support that helped us finally turn our idea into a reality,” says Chaeyeon.

“The concept of our software is simple. It helps people with hearing disabilities understand others even when they have masks on,” explains Doyeon. “We utilized a smartphone’s voice recognition feature to pick up the sounds. The recognized sounds are transcribed as text onto an OLED display attached to the front of the facemask. The data transfer is enabled by Bluetooth.”

Doyeon and Chaeyeon’s software invention was recognized for its creativity, practical use, and care for their friends during these trying times and was selected as the winner of the 2020 Samsung Junior SW Cup.