For my final project, I want to create a vocabulary learning system that uses hand gestures and light sensors to make memorizing words more engaging and physical. I’ve been thinking about how passive flashcard apps never really stick with me, and I’m curious whether tying words to actual movements might help them stay in my memory better. I want to focus on making the interaction feel natural and intuitive.
The basic idea is that I’ll have 2-3 photoresistors connected to Arduino, and my hand movements over them will control what appears on the P5 display. I’m imagining hovering my left hand to see just a definition, then hovering my right hand to reveal the actual word. I was also thinking maybe a quick swipe over both sensors could mark a word as learned and move it into a review pile, while holding my hand still might show an example sentence. What interests me most is building in a spaced repetition algorithm on the P5 side. I could have it track which words I struggle with and surface them more frequently, visualizing my progress over time. I’m also thinking it could be fun to add a “word of the day” feature that appears when I first turn it on, or maybe even pull from different vocabulary sets like GRE or LSAT words, academic writing terms, or just interesting words I encounter and want to remember.