Do You See What I See?
Engineers developed optical character recognition technology to scan and recognize digits and text.Copyright 2008 John Sauter, Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OCR-A_char_digits.svg
Students explore the concept of optical character recognition (OCR) in a problem-solving environment. They research OCR and OCR techniques and then apply those methods to the design challenge by developing algorithms capable of correctly "reading" a number on a typical high school sports scoreboard. Students use the structure of the engineering design process to guide them to develop successful algorithms. In the associated activity, student groups implement, test and revise their algorithms. This software design lesson/activity set is designed to be part of a Java programming class.
Like software engineers, students are challenged to design a new piece of software to perform a task. In the development of any new design, engineers follow the steps of the design process as they create and refine possible solutions. This is true in all engineering disciplines, for example, as mechanical engineers develop new vehicles or rollercoasters, or as chemical engineers experiment with new combinations of chemicals or new applications for existing chemicals. Through the lesson and its associated activity, students experience the entire software/systems design process. They perform the requirement analysis and design phases during the lesson, and the implementation, testing and evolution phases during the associated activity. The lesson is a hands-on performance-based project in which groups work through the same design process steps that real-world engineering teams do in order to accomplish goals.
After this lesson, students should be able to:
- Apply some steps of the design process to solving a problem.
- Describe the engineering design process and the software design process.
- Explain the importance of using a design process to develop a solution to a problem.
- Explain optical character representation (OCR) and techniques that can be used by OCR.
- Develop an algorithm for OCR.