CamAcc%202014-SS12.jpg The CSUN team entering the 2014 SS12 Code for a Cause national competition last April had big shoes to fill and a tradition to uphold. CECS teams had already won the competition three out of the past four years. And the 2014 team did not disappoint, once again claiming first place. Freshman Noah J. Anderson; senior Leonard Tatum; and juniors Stefan King, Kristoffer Larson and Javier Pimental—all computer science majors—created the winning app, an Android camera app for the blind and visually impaired called CamAcc. The application is designed to facilitate photography through voice recognition while giving users feedback through features similar to those of Google TalkBack, which also caters to the visually impaired. Employing voice commands, users can take a picture, apply a filter and share it on Facebook. CamAcc also auto-focuses, detects faces, centers portraits and detects light, including auto flash. It is the first application of its kind.

CamAcc was rolled out last March at CSUN’s 29th Annual International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference, held in San Diego, where the CamAcc team had an opportunity to test their design with visually impaired conference attendees.

“Before nationals began, the app was being talked about by many national conference participants, who filled the room to learn more about it,” says Doris Chaney, coordinator for the CSUN 2014 SS12 competition. Following their presentation, the students were handed business cards by technology professionals who thought they had already completed their degrees. One of the judges was so impressed by the students that he offered them jobs, not knowing that they still had a few years left before graduation. (The students were able to accept internships instead.) SS12 is sponsored by Project Possibility, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating open source software for people with disabilities. The CSUN team also presented CamAcc at the seventh Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges Southwestern Regional Conference, which was hosted by CSUN’s computer science department on March 14–15, 2014. In addition, the group presented the project at CSUN’s Founders’ Day on September 20, 2014, to former faculty, staff, students and friends from the university’s first graduating class in engineering.