Lesson: 19 - Shoebox (Voice Recognition Calculator)

Purpose: To help students understand how speech recognition works by recreating the world's first speech-recognition calculator (Shoebox - 1961) using Scratch and Artificial Intelligence.

Materials Required

Computer / Laptop, Internet connection

Curriculum Content Machine Learning for Kids (Website Link), Custom Model Training, 7.2) Voice Recognition(AI), 5.3) Operators, 6.12) Variables

Prior knowledge

Basic understanding of Scratch blocks (Events, Variables and Operators). Students should know how to record voice using a microphone.

Exercises

Exercise:1


  1. How to create a Speech Recognition project in Machine Learning for Kids in Scratch GUI.

Solutions


  • Click here to view the solution video file for exercise-1


    • Teacher's Instruction
    1. Introduce Shoebox (1961), the world's first speech-recognition calculator.
    2. Explain how speech recognition helps computers understand spoken words.
    3. Demonstrate how to record clear voice samples using a microphone.
    4. Explain why eight training examples are collected for each number.
    5. Guide students to train and test the AI model.
    6. Help students connect the trained AI model to Scratch.
    7. Explain how variables store the spoken numbers.
    8. Demonstrate how the addition operator calculates the answer.
    9. Allow students to test different voices and pronunciations.
    10. Help students identify and correct prediction errors caused by unclear recordings or background noise.