I.
Introduction/ Team name
II.
Problem Definition
-
Background:
When children reach school age, they are often given a study area to help them concentrate
and have better circumstances for their academic work. As a result, kids will utilize the area for
self-study activities including finishing their schoolwork, reading, and keeping journals.
However, since this is a private area, parents cannot always keep an eye on their children to
remind them to sit properly.
Online learning is also seen to be the most practical way to keep up with educational
activities in light of the serious COVID-19 pandemic epidemic. Even if the epidemic is over and
people are back to their regular lives, online learning is still growing in popularity and usage.
Unfortunately, prolonged sitting has been associated with the onset of back pain (Lis et al.,
2007).
-
Problem:
Due to sedentary lives and the lack of strict control over parents and instructors to provide
regular reminders about good seated positions, especially in courses with higher academic
requirements, students are more likely to have poor posture. Vijayalakshmi et al. (2022) claim
that they spend most of their time sitting down. The cognitive performance and sleep quality of
students, sedentary adults, and workers who spend a lot of time sitting wrongly may be affected.
Muscle imbalances, tension, and weariness caused by poor posture eventually lead to
musculoskeletal pain at night or during the day.
Students who take part in distance or online learning may also adopt different habitual
postures during their online learning experiences (e.g., sitting at the edge of the chair, lying
supine or in a prone position, etc.) (Bettany-Saltikov et al., 2019).
As reported by Bagherian and Nafian (2021), these positions are examples of improper body
alignment that result in micro-spasms, a reduction in the soft tissue's typical elasticity, and
changes in the length and strength of muscles that modify how antagonists and synergists interact
with one another. According to Solberg (2014), a significant contributing factor to functional
postural problems (such as forward-head, kyphosis, lordosis, swayback, etc.) is likely the sort of
prolonged or uncomfortable posture that students adopt during the day.
-
Effect
It is generally believed that childhood is the best time to affect postural change and undo the
physical harm modern lifestyles can inflict while also preparing young people for healthy body
use as adults (Bettany-Saltikov et al., 2019). This is because young people are more flexible and
adaptive learners than adults.
According to Vijayalakshmi et al. (2022), it is generally known that bad body posture causes
spinal or musculoskeletal disorders, namely in the cervicothoracic joint and lumbosacral joints.
During online learning, prolonged postures may cause tissue adaptations, such as short, stiff,
lengthy, overworked, or weak muscles. The development of tension is reduced and the muscle is
unable to provide the force required for effective posture when muscle length is changed as a
result of misalignment (bad posture). According to Bagherian & Nafian (2021), a postural
disturbance brought on by inappropriate seating, for instance, might worsen neck, mid-, and
lower back, shoulder, and leg discomfort.
When bad posture is practiced over time, it develops into a habit at a young age. According
to Vijayalakshmi et al. 2022, those who keep certain wrong postures may become accustomed to
them and find them to be pleasant, which might result in tiredness and deformity later on in life.
III.
Proposed Solution
Functional postural abnormalities may be less complicated if they are caught early and
treated. Corrective exercises to reduce muscular imbalance, increase strength, and increase
flexibility may be helpful for those with postural issues (Bagherian & Nafian, 2021). Parents and
pupils must thus appreciate the importance of good posture and spinal health.
In response to the aforementioned issues, we developed an application that uses a camera
to track a student's posture and the distance between their eyes and the screen while they are
studying. The computer camera will be used to watch the pupil while the camera next to the
students will track the entire sitting position for the posture detector. The users must move
between these two modes in order to enjoy both stance and eye tracking. The program can
determine whether or not the student is seated inappropriately based on the photographs it has
taken, and it will issue warning warnings in that case. The warning will end as soon as the kids
adopt proper posture once more. Additionally, this program has the ability to record any
instances of bad posture that are found, allowing parents to review the recordings later and make
the necessary corrections to their children's sitting position.
The pupils can maintain the proper posture while studying by utilizing this program. This can
help restrict and decrease the habit of sitting incorrectly, not just when studying because the
program promptly notifies the user anytime it detects improper posture. Students won't have
musculoskeletal issues like neck aches or back pain after using this program for a while. When
allowing their children to self-study and take online classes, parents and kids alike will feel more
safe. This is due to the fact that they have an assistant who keeps tabs on their learning, so they
do not need to constantly remind and check them.
IV.
Implementation
APPROACHING THE SOLUTION
After taking a look into the problem statement and its requirements, as well as fully writing
down the overall scope of our program, we started finding out which criteria would there be to
judge the user's pose. When it comes to sitting posture, over-bending and head bending are
noteworthy points. Our information researcher did a few simple searches online to find the
necessary criteria. According to
Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, the trunk inclination in the range of
0 to 30 degrees from the gravity vector can represent a good sitting posture
(https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/ergonomics/sitting/sitting_position.html?fbclid=IwAR2yOK
K6KVgdORgAvaNuMfI1_LzHeQnHHCLQf_la6auVbXqfX4LA6yd427w). We also learned
about the appropriate eye-to-screen distance (from 40cm to 70cm) from an article by The College
of
Optometrists
(https://lookafteryoureyes.org/eye-care/screenuse/#:~ :text=Focusing%20on%20a%20screen%20may,or%20slightly%20below%2C%20your%
20eyes).
MATHEMATICS CALCULATION AND BUILT-IN LIBRARIES FOR PROCESSING
THE PROBLEM
The next problem is to measure these parameters. The human body has several bony joints,
and correlating their positions is the solution. We chose anchor points for the hip, shoulder, and
ear, and then created vectors from those points on a two-dimensional plane. The hip and shoulder
are interlocked on the torso, which is the first vector; the second vector connects the shoulder and
ear, representing the relative positions of the shoulder and head. A simple vector angle calculation
was used to obtain the tilt between the vectors from these anchor points and the gravity vector.
∠(𝑎⃗, 𝑏⃗⃗) = acos⁡(
𝑥𝐴⁡ × 𝑥𝐵 + 𝑦𝐴⁡ × 𝑦𝐵
√𝑥𝐴2 + 𝑦𝐴2 ⁡ × √𝑥𝐵 2 +⁡𝑦𝐵2
)
For example, with the hip H(xH, yH) and shoulder S(xS, yS), set the gravity vector as G(0,
yG = -yH):
⃗⃗⃗⃗⃗⃗, 𝐺⃗ ) = acos⁡(
∠(𝐻𝑆
(𝑦𝑆 − 𝑦𝐻) ⁡ × 𝑦𝐺
√(𝑥𝑆 − 𝑥𝐻)2 + ⁡ (𝑦𝑆 − 𝑦𝐻)2 ⁡ × |𝑦𝐺|
)
To detect the distance from the eyes to the screen, sample metrics representing the distance
between the left and right eye on the screen and the real distance were measured. The next step
was to figure out how to obtain the position data for the left and right eyes and simply apply a
scaling calculation based on the sample data.
𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑝𝑢𝑡_𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙_𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 = ⁡
𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒_𝑒𝑦𝑒𝑠_𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒
⁡ × 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒_𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙_𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒
𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡_𝑒𝑦𝑒𝑠_𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑒
Since we didn't have much time to create a dataset, we thought of MediaPipe, a built-in
Python library with all the features we were looking for. MediaPipe is quite an affordable machinelearning solution with lots of intuitive video tutorials and direct hands-on experience without
installation. Since body nodes can be easily extracted through this library, our main algorithmic
problem has been solved. For the convenience of recording and image processing, we use the
OpenCV2 library.
DATABASE
Data on the identified poses needs to be stored and used to review and train other models
should the need arise to update the algorithm. A database of tables leading to video recordings
when the conditions set by the algorithm are met is needed. To allow sufficient time, reduce coding
complexity, and facilitate extraction for algorithm implementation, a local database was created
and the tables were managed using the SQLite3 library.
To reduce the burden on memory, only the three most recent sessions are temporarily stored.
The table consists of four sub-tables (SessionTrack from 1 to 4) that store identification data for
the three most recent sessions and one current session, and the interface displays only the three
most recent sessions. To control which table the program writes data to, it uses the file
SessionCount.txt to update the name of the table to write to. To display the three most recent
sessions, it has a SessionNum table with a mode that deletes the oldest rows and leaves only three
rows. Our database stores the link to the recorded videos in the SessionTrack table and deletes the
data each time the table is called again in the rotation order (1(a) - 2 - 3 - 4 - 1(b)): 1(a) will be
replaced by 1(b))
SessionNum storing the 3 nearest sessions,
and
SessionTrack(s) storing the video links
Data Organization
INTERFACE
Our designers have sketched out a sample interface since discussing the solution, with the
left side displaying the image recorded from the camera, while the right side displays the
recognition results and includes a data storage function. This interface was built using Tkinter,
which is also an embedded Python library suitable for simple user interfaces.
UI design on Figma (www.figma.com)
V.
Conclusion
- Goals and Objectives
The pupils are aware of excellent sitting posture, but they do not use it in their daily lives,
claims Aisyah (2014). While doing so, parents exhibit a high level of awareness about the
indications of proper posture as well as its significance for the pupils, according to Ryabova et al.
(2021). They struggle to control the proper shape for their kids, though. Therefore, our objective
is to develop a user-monitoring program that encourages users to keep good posture while using
it. We also want to assist our users in becoming more conscious and developing the habit of
sitting properly. Our team aims to reach 800 consumers to install the application in the first
month of introduction with a number of helpful features that address the customers' problems.
This goal is entirely attainable because, according to Wu (n.d.) and Yang et al. (2020), roughly
60% of the 600,000 students who participated in the survey, continue to sit incorrectly when they
study. This is a significant statistic that highlights a serious issue with students' health, both now
and in the future. Because of this, and given that there were 800 individuals, just 0.2% of the
students were seated incorrectly, we were able to accomplish our goal.
-
Benefits for stakeholders
Parents and students make up the bulk of our clientele. The pupils will be aware of their own
health issues, particularly eye and musculoskeletal issues. However, after spending a long period
in one position, pupils may start to alter and lose the ability to maintain proper posture. As a
result, they require a helper to notice anytime they are sitting wrongly and to promptly remind
them. The group of people who genuinely care about their children's health in general and their
sitting posture in particular are the parents. They also require a monitoring system in order to
keep track of their kids' study sessions and prevent improper posture. This program will assist
the students in reducing ocular and musculoskeletal issues, particularly back and neck pain, by
helping them sit with proper posture and maintain the proper distance from screens when using
electronic devices. By teaching the pupils to sit properly and keep their distance from the screen,
we also want to allay the concerns of the parents.
Teachers are a group of people who benefit greatly from this application for community
members. First and foremost, the quality of the pupils' independent learning will increase since
good posture may improve their physical health and provide them more freedom to learn without
their parents' rigorous supervision. Second, the parents of their pupils will feel safer and be
prepared to register their children for online classes since there is monitoring assistance to alert
them promptly of inappropriate seating styles. This will boost the number of students enrolled in
distance learning as well as guarantee the quality of their online lessons. Finally, because bad
posture affects the quality of sleep as well as health (Vijayalakshmi et al., 2022), sitting correctly
will benefit pupils while they attend courses from professors.
Lis, A. M., Black, K. M., Korn, H., & Nordin, M. (2007, February). Association between sitting
and occupational LBP. European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine
Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical
Spine Research Society.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2200681/#:~:text=Sitting%20by%20itself
%20does%20not,the%20greatest%20increase%20in%20LBP.
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Loganathan, S. (2022). A short term evaluation of scapular upper brace on posture and its
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posture during online learning should not be overlooked. Iranian Journal of Pediatrics,
31(5). https://doi.org/10.5812/ijp.118197
Aisyah, F. (2014, June 1). The awareness of a good sitting posture among students.
Academia.edu.
https://www.academia.edu/1844794/The_Awareness_of_a_Good_Sitting_Posture_among_
students
Ryabova, I., Sobolevskaya, T., Nezhkina, N., & Mirskaya, N. (2021). School students’ posture:
Parents’ view. SHS Web of Conferences, 98, 01010.
https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20219801010
Yang, L., Lu, X., Yan, B., & Huang, Y. (2020, May 22). Prevalence of incorrect posture among
children and adolescents: Finding from a large population-based study in China. iScience.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7178490/
Wu, A. (n.d.). Poor posture wreaks students’ health. The Current.
https://olhscurrent.org/18356/features/poor-posture-wreaks-students-health/