Most of the week, I was focused on collecting data and everything data-related. At the start of the week, we initially tried to start collecting data. However, there were some issues with the left glove. This ranged from some of the wire connections being loose to various parts of the flex sensor being caught in the string. I assisted in hashing those out and added my opinion about additional changes. While this happened, I adjusted the scripts to handle the two streams of data from the gloves. Then, once everything was set, we collected data for both me and Somya. We collected for the whole BSL alphabet which included 26 letters and an additional sign for the resting state. With around 1200 points for each letter, we were able to collect a total dataset of size 64800. I also handled cleaning up the data and visualizing it before we train a model with it next week.
Ideally, we would’ve also collected data for Ria, but due to time constraints, we were unable to. I believe that the best course of action is to proceed with this slightly smaller dataset and collect more if the performance is not good enough. With that in mind, I am on schedule.
Next week, I will develop a new ML model with the data we collected, evaluate performance, and make any additional changes as needed. I do foresee potential classification issues with several letters of the BSL alphabet, but I will hopefully discuss that with my partners on Monday. We might need to curate our vocabulary more rigorously or find another solution if the ML model does not reach our desired accuracy metrics. I will hopefully be performing verification tests next week to ensure both the accuracy and speed of the ML model and the overall classification system.