Handwriting tells a lot about a person. When it comes to writing Chinese characters, writing correctly is as important as writing beautifully. In a conventional classroom setting, it is difficult and time-consuming, if not entirely impossible, to monitor each student’s writing process in detail. Often, teachers can only evaluate learning performances based on examining the written characters. Identifying improvements to be made in terms of stroke order and pen orientation is a real challenge.

The team has developed an E-Pen that can record writing patterns as well as real-time orientation of the pen itself. This reveals details and useful information about the writing process, including order of drawing strokes, the force distribution and time spent in drawing strokes. Teachers, occupational therapists, primary schools and rehabilitation centres can retrieve the information through a light-weight and portable device, to which the E-Pen simultaneously connects. The drawing patterns are stored digitally and studied by machine learning algorithms, which, in the future, can automatically offer feedback and lessen the workload of teachers.

The team is providing a tool that assists teachers and occupational therapists to access the drawing patterns of individuals in detail, monitor what students are drawing and give precise suggestions in real time. The invention revolutionises the way students and physically challenged individuals improve their handwriting. The team will explore commercialising their technology — providing charged services for extracting drawing pattern data and generating customised reports.

30 primary school students20 clients taking occupational therapy

2019

Active Ageing, Healthcare, MedTech, Well-being