Author: ccrooks

I accomplished my task of making the voice commands faster and more accurate. I did this by modifying my previous code and searching for tips online on how to make it faster. I had experimented with different Speech-to-Text models, like Vosk and Google Assistant, to see what would happen, but I found that the Whisper + Picovoice Wake Word combination worked the best. I also worked more on the Flutter UI, based on the design that I created from last week. I am on schedule.

I hope to try modifying the voice commands so that actions are actually taken when a command is spoken (ie. actually pausing a video). I will also finish the Flutter UI so that we can test it on different table surfaces and see what it looks like.

Table UI – I designed layout of user interface on Adobe XD, developed a few different layouts and designs to choose from. Below is an example of one design. I also downloaded flutter and reacquainted myself with the software through tutorials.

Voice Commands – I received the microphone and tested it with the speech recognition program on my laptop. I tested it to make sure that it works, and I was able to transcribe the speech.
I was able to develop voice commands where the user says [Wake up word] [command], but it doesn’t always work. I did get it to work a few times.

On track with scheduling
Next week
Voice commands – work on the script more to make it more accurate
UI – decide on the layout and color scheme, work on integrating it with flutter

I researched speech recognition software. Then, I experimented with Porcupine Wake Word recognition and SpeechRecognition Python library with Whisper. Both were easy to use and have good documentation. I made a program recognize a wake word with Porcupine’s library and printed out live speech with the SpeechRecognition library. The Wake Word recognition works quickly, but I had issues making the Speech Recognition translate speech as fast as I wanted. Additionally, I reached out to Prof. Sullivan this week for advice on microphones and decided on starting out with a wireless clip on microphone to pick up voice commands. I also spent a couple hours practicing the pitch presentation because it was my turn to present. Everything is on schedule.

Next week, I will make a faster speech recognition program and integrate that with wake up words to get basic voice commands working. I will also work on the interface by wireframing table and web UI and develop a list of all user interactions. Then, I will order new microphone.