The goal of the TalkBox project is to develop an open-source, open-hardware Speech Generating Device (SGD). It provides non-verbal students in special education a way to build a low-cost, easily configurable SGD with the help of their teacher. The TalkBox project has been developed as a collaboration between the GaMaY Lab at the Lassonde School of Engineering, Ray Feraday and myself.
Please see here for setup instructions and details.
The mpr121.py file is derived from Scott Garner's Beetbox project, which is in turn based on an Arduino example by Jim Lindblom. The old TalkBox repository can be found here.
You'll need the following materials:
- MPR121 Capacitive Touch Sensor Breakout Board.
- RaspberryPi.
- Some header pins and wires.
- A small speaker.
- As many arts and crafts materials as you like!
- Hamidi, Foad, Melanie Baljko, Toni Kunic, and Ray Feraday. "Do-It-Yourself (DIY) assistive technology: a communication board case study." 14th International Conference, ICCHP, pp. 287-294. Springer, Cham, 2014.
- Hamidi, Foad, Melanie Baljko, Toni Kunic, and Ray Feraday. "TalkBox: a DIY communication board case study." Journal of Assistive Technologies 9, no. 4 (2015): 187-198.
In collaboration with the Tetra Society of North America, the GaMaY lab conducted a free workshop at the 2014 Toronto Mini Maker Faire, in which we helped children with disabilities make and customize their very own TalkBox.