Computer Engineering Department’s Graduation Projects Completed Successfully In Academic Year 2016-2017

Today, the number of programs to help enhance the quality of life for individuals with disabilities, through the use of computer technologies, is rising rapidly. With a view to raising awareness in Turkey as well as our class to graduate, this year, we asked the senior year computer engineering students to develop new technological products in this area. Through a busy and focused marathon of six weeks, the teams composed of our students successfully implemented a total of 17 projects in four categories: visual disabilities, hearing disabilities, mental disabilities, and physical disabilities. Five of the teams were invited to the project exhibition carried out at the university, and used the opportunity to present their work to the visitors.

AVIATO: (First Prize)

The AVIATO team composed of Simla Burcu Harma, Selami Pak, Büşra Karatay and Eşref Oğuzhan Yıldırım developed a software to facilitate computer use by individuals with physical disabilities, to avoid the use of devices which require physical skills to interact with the computer, such as the keyboard and mouse.

The software allows the use of speech to perform the functions of the keyboard and the mouse. The software enables the use of not only the desktop applications, but also popular web apps such as Twitter and YouTube, through speech only. Moreover, the speech recognition set included in the package enables the dynamic development of the voice command recognition capabilities of the software.

NUCLEUS: (Second Prize)

The NUCLEUS team composed of Batuhan Büyükgüzel, Yaşar Budulgan, Mehmet Fatih Çekirdek, and Ayberk Halaç developed a technology to help individuals with visual disabilities to find their personal belongings in a given space.

With this technology, the visually impaired user can make her smartphone scan a given space visually. The scan process allows the rapid categorization of the objects in the space, using smart image processing algorithms. Upon finding the object being searched, the phone directs the visually disabled user towards the object being searched for.

UNIMPEDED GAMES: (Third Prize)

The UNIMPEDED GAMES team composed of Mert Görateş, Muhammed Talha İlhan, Burak Tekin, Osman Tufan Tekin, and Mert Samet Yurttaş developed a new FRP computer game, to help visually impaired individuals have a good time and socialize with others while doing so.

The controls of the game were developed with the visually impaired in mind. The narratives and feedbacks are provided with voice. All the functions in the game are assigned keyboard shortcuts. Multiplayer arena and offline messaging are among other features to enable interaction between the players.

CANAFARLAR: (Fourth Prize)

The CANAFARLAR team composed of Mücahit İsmail Aktaş, Ayşegül Kahya, İbrahim Yılmaz, and Muhammed Ali Yurdagül developed a system whereby ALS patients can convey their daily needs to caregiver staff.

Through the system, ALS patients can use eye movements to provide input to the software developed by the team. The needs they voice thus can be sent as alerts to the mobile phones of the caregiver personnel, and thus notify the latter about the daily needs of ALS patients.

M4NSoftworks: (Fifth Prize)

The M4NSoftworks team composed of Kaan Gonca, Muhammed Salih Karagöz, Mehmet Mert Mahmutoğlu, and Meriç Ali Yiğit developed a control device to allow visually disabled users to control their smartphones.

The visually disabled user can assign any function of the phone to the wireless and mobile control device, using special buttons with embossed labels, designed physically for users with visual disabilities. For instance, upon pressing a button on the control device, the mobile phone of the user starts automatically to provide voice navigation from the current location to the user’s home. The app developed for the project includes numerous templates for making phone calls, sending messages, playing music etc. The users can customize the templates further and come up with new functions, and assign them to a combination of buttons on the device.

Other Projects

Click here to check out the videos providing detailed descriptions of all the projects.