Spirit of Math - taking math education to the next level

The Spirit of Math contest is an international math contest, written by students from grades 1-4. The students are given individual contest papers, specific to their grade level, along with a multiple choice answer sheet from which to choose their answer. This scanning app works **EXCLUSIVELY** with our contest answer sheets to tabulate a registered student's score and compile them for that particular grade-level contest for that registered school. The scores with then are transmitted to our team for verification.

Once the answer sheets have been verified, the scores will be provided to the appropriate schools for each student.

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Screens from app

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Services:

Design
iOS
Android
Back-end
Front-end
QA

Technologies:

React JS
Swift
Java
PHP Laravel
C++
Machine Vision
OpenCV

Industries:

Education
Media & Entertainment

The Challenge

The initial idea of a system was to remove possible cheating by teachers. Whole contests process, starting with its creation and ending with a student answer sheet submission, should be seamlessly handled by a system. 
The biggest challenge was to create a module that will be able to scan the answers sheet in real-time in different conditions. No matter good or lousy lightning, dark or white table with a textured background or not, perfectly printed answer sheet or with defects - scanning should be fast, accurate and work on both iOS & Android.

The Solution

Use C++ OpenCV as a tool for Machine Vision. It will give an ability to write module on C++ and port it to iOS & Android at the same time.
Print aruco symbols to identify a sheet and sheet perspective. The idea was to print logos on four corners, which will give the ability to identify sheet position and camera perspective.
Use low-quality images and adjust it programmatically to speed up the scanning process

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The results

01
The scanning process takes less than 0.2 seconds and is not visible to a human eye
02
Answer sheet can be scanned on any surface and even with a bad lightning
03
OpenCV module ported on both iOS & Android platforms and always gives perfect results
04
Works exclusively with Spirit Of Math answer sheets

It's a positive experience working with a NerdzLab. They communicate at any time and any hour, they prompt with their deliverables, and they are always there to help and give a helping hand. My self - I do not have a technical background. However, I felt that for me it was an easy project to work on.

Nathan Langen

Director at Spirit of Math