Applying color recognition techniques to achieve low-cost portable digital board functionalities

Digital teaching support devices, like digital boards, are becoming increasingly popular to improve concept learning, as they allow manipulating represented objects in new and very innovative ways if compared with traditional boards. However, their acquisition cost (device, software licenses, additional hardware), and the lack of deployment flexibility to adapt to certain classroom configurations, are the main problems that prevents them to be used in a substantial number of educational environments or slow their adoption rate. This research shows that a color recognition algorithm, applied to projected images captured by consumer-grade webcams, can successfully provide functionalities equivalent to typical digital boards on low-budget educational environments. This way, a pointer object is recognized by its color, and its actions are interpreted at real time to be converted to standard UI actions in the computer screen, as a standard input device. The prototype has been also designed to be usable in classroom environments of different sizes, available space, or configuration, maximizing reutilization of existing elements in the classroom. The research prototype was successfully deployed in a real classroom using modest hardware, inexpensive requirements, and very flexible setup options, adapting both to student and teacher needs.