 UW undergraduate team wins $10,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for gloves that translate sign language 
 
 Two University of Washington undergraduates have won a $10,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for gloves that can translate sign language into text or speech. This year, UW sophomores Navid Azodi and Thomas Pryor — who are studying business administration and aeronautics and astronautics engineering, respectively — won the “Use It” undergraduate category that recognizes technology-based inventions to improve consumer devices. A pair of sophomores at the University of Washington in Seattle have invented high-tech gloves that can interpret the hand gestures of American Sign Language (ASL) users and convert them into speech that hearing people who don’t know ASL can understand. This glove works by attaching several sensors to the fingers to record their position and then sending data to a computer using wires sewn into the lining. The gloves then send the data via Bluetooth to a computer that matches the gesture with the associated word or phrase. “Many of the sign language translation devices already out there are not practical for everyday use. Some use video input, while others have sensors that cover the user’s entire arm or body,” said Pryor, an undergraduate researcher in the Composite Structures Laboratory in the Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics and software lead for the Husky Robotics Team. “Our gloves are lightweight, compact and worn on the hands, but ergonomic enough to use as an everyday accessory, similar to hearing aids or contact lenses.” 
 
 According to the World Health Organization, around 360 million people worldwide have some form of disabling hearing loss, and many of these individuals rely on sign language to communicate. “Our purpose for developing these gloves was to provide an easy-to-use bridge between native speakers of American Sign Language and the rest of the world,” Mr. Azodi, who with his teammate Mr. Pryor recently won a $10,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for their invention, said in a statement. Pryor and Azodi’s first target audience is the deaf and hard-of-hearing community and those interested in learning and working with American Sign Language. But the gloves could also be commercialized for use in other fields, including medical technology to monitor stroke patients during rehabilitation, gesture control and enhanced dexterity in virtual reality.
– Some half a million people use American Sign Language to communicate. Now, communicating with others who don't know ASL could be as easy as donning a pair of gloves. Navid Azodi and Thomas Pryor, undergraduates at the University of Washington, were recently awarded a $10,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for inventing a pair of gloves, called SignAloud, that convert ASL to speech. The goal is to "provide an easy-to-use bridge between native speakers of American Sign Language and the rest of the world," says Azodi, who used non-verbal communication until age 7, per the Christian Science Monitor. Sensors inside the gloves read hand position and movement, the data is sent to a computer via Bluetooth, and the computer speaks the ASL word or phrase in English. These aren't the first such gloves. "Some use video input, while others have sensors that cover the user’s entire arm or body," Pryor tells Medical Daily. However, "our gloves are lightweight, compact, and worn on the hands, but ergonomic enough to use as an everyday accessory, similar to hearing aids or contact lenses." Whether the deaf community is interested is another story: Azodi tells NPR the pair have been criticized for "not understanding the [ASL] culture." For example, a negative of a word in ASL is often conveyed with a shaking of the head or a frown, which isn't possible with SignAloud. Azodi and Pryor say they're working with ASL users to upgrade the gloves, which may also help monitor stroke patients and enhance dexterity and gesture control in virtual reality, per the University of Washington. (A whole class learned sign language for a deaf boy.)