There will be no need for music instrument hobbyists to memorize the scores or to turn the pages while performing music thanks to the invention of a digital score supported by eye tracking technology. The project won a second prize at the 35th Guangdong Adolescents Science & Technology Invention Contest, which wrapped up on May 11.

When a pianist, guitarist or drummer is fully indulged in a performance, especially in the pieces that have fast tempos, he or she can hardly spare a hand from the music to turn the pages. Chen Shangzhe and her teammates, who are all junior one students from Futian Science Middle School, embedded an eye tracker in the digital score, which enabled the users to browse and select pieces from the music library and to turn pages of the score during a performance through movement of their eyes. The score could also detect the amount of time users’ gazing at the score to avoid maloperations.

Chen hopes that the score can help the performers enjoy music better without being distracted. She also stated that the team has faced a handful of challenges and accidents at preparing for the contest, but thankfully, they achieved an excellent job, understood team spirit better, and had a lot of fun.

Futian Science Middle School had two more award-winning projects at the competition, namely, an adaptive cruise control lawn cleaning robot developed by junior two student Huo Guanyu, which also won a second prize, and a new stair climbing mechanical structure developed by junior one student Guo Wenjing, which won a third prize.

The contest was jointly held by Guangdong Association for Science and Technology, Department of Education of GuangdongProvince, Department of Science and Technology of Guangdong Province, Guangdong Intellectual Property Bureau, and the Guangdong Provincial Committee of Communist Youth League of China. Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, all the entries of this years’ contest were submitted and rated online.

The eye-tracking score also won a first prize at the 35th Shenzhen Youth Innovation Competition last December. Her school won a total of seven first prizes, three second prizes and four third prizes at the competition, ranking Futian Science Middle School at the top among all the participants.

(Wang Haolan)