Gest-art : preliminary study for the development of an avatar for our research on children

Ensimag second year FabLab project : Gest-art : an avatar for language acuiqisition using manual gestures. In the framework of our research on children, we want to develop playful tools to study the role of manual gestures in speech acquisition. We thus supervised a development study project involving second year Ensimag students (computer science engineering; http://ensimag.grenoble-inp.fr) in collaboration with the FabMSTIC Fablab (http://fabmstic.liglab.fr). During the 3 weeks the project lasted, the 4 students completed the following tasks : (1) Model a 3D character using Blender and animate it with NiMate to create videos of the character producing manual gestures; (2) Integrate a gesture recognition library and recognize simple gestures captured using a Kinect; (3) Identify physical objects using a QRCode; (4) Implement a first ineteraction scenario based on the research conducted by Maxime Barnier, a student in interactive design (Design School of Villefontaine - http://www.designvillefontaine.com). The presentation video edited by the students is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kve1FUUFSac. Their project report is available here (in French): https://ensiwiki.ensimag.fr/index.php/Projet_de_spécialité_FabLab_:_Gest-art_:_un_avatar_pour_l’apprentissage_du_langage_via_la_gestualité. The drawings and gestures used in this project were conceived in collaboration with Estelle Gillet-Perret, speech pathologist at Grenoble Hospital.