STUDENT CODES PROGRAM
TO HELP THE COLORBLIND
W
hen Alex Irick sees the world,
things look a bit muted to him.
The eighth grader at the Jerry Knight
STEM Academy is colorblind, so he
can’t differentiate
colors that look
similar. Reddish
hues look black,
green appears as
“It extracts the RGB (red, green,
blue) value and uses algorithm to
simplify the 16 billion different
combinations into simple color
names,” the 13-year-old explained.
“One day, I just came to school,
and I was like, ‘Eureka! I figured
it all out!’ So I showed everyone,
and they were like, ‘That’s
amazing! How did you do that?’”
When Irick explains
how he coded his
helper tool, not too
many people his age
yellow, and purple
tints are blue.
can fully comprehend
it. Classmate Nathan
Barling, who is also
colorblind, said the
coding aspect may
go over his head, but
he’s grateful to be
one of the people who
can benefit from it.
Irick said he has
learned how to
cope; but when he
had an assignment
that required him
to answer questions
from a color-coded
map, he knew he
had to do something.
“I’m very thankful that
someone not only made
something like that, but
made it for free that
I can use whenever I
need,” said Barling.
“Once he was finished,
he gave me one of the
betas, and I started
using it, and it was
really helpful. I hovered
over something that I
“I would ask other
kids in class or
the teacher, and
they would help
whenever I wanted
to know what a color
was. However, I
wanted to be able to
know what the color
was on my own,”
said Irick. “That’s
when I decided to
create a program
to help me.”
thought was white, and
it was a pinkish color.”
For Irick, programming and coding is a venue to help others.
It took Irick only two weeks to
program Color Helper. Once
downloaded onto a computer, any
user can hover the cursor over an
object on the screen, and the name
of the object’s color will pop up.
Because Irick can’t see all the colors
himself, he had to thoroughly
research and study the numeral RGB
values to understand how they work.
He said it was a challenge that
definitely paid off in the end.
Irick started
programming in the
sixth grade and plans to
pursue a career in computer science.
He noted that he likes creating
helpers for people and has
already made applications to help
students take better class notes
and organize class schedules.
MANSFIELDTODAY 15