An electronics company has developed an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered, facial recognition camera exclusively for the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) classroom.

Dubbed HuskyLens, the camera developed by DFRobot is an easy-to-use camera designed to teach STEM students about facial biometrics and object recognition and tracking using built-in algorithms.

The camera is capable of tracking and recognizing objects, line tracking, face recognition, tag recognition and color recognition. Students can easily change algorithms built into the camera by pressing a series of buttons and they can easily connect to controller boards to create projects with the camera, according to its developers.

Applications for the technology include enabling students to create interactive projects such as self-driving robots using the camera’s line following and tag recognition features. Likewise, the camera can serve as a robot’s eyes, enabling robots to recognize students and to understand their hand gestures.

HuskyLens joins a host of recent STEM-related gadgets, games and toys designed to attract young students to the STEM fields where there is currently a skills shortage. This is particularly true for females who are overwhelmingly underrepresented in STEM disciplines.

Among those recent gadgets designed to attract youngsters to the STEM fields are Shifu Tacto, an augmented reality device that transforms any tablet into an interactive game board and Coding Critters, which teaches preschool-aged children the basics of coding through storytelling.

Meanwhile, Doodlematic from Tink Digital enables young artists to turn their drawings into actual playable games.