Meet Team Colt

1. Meet Team Colt Erin Tibbetts Ryan Schnepper *Good with tools. *Organized. *Plans well. *Hard worker *Organized *Willing to help others

2. Team Colt Client • Sarah has the internal parts of her left ear but none of the external parts, so she cannot hear out of this ear at all. She was added into the inclusion class in her school. Her doctor suggested getting speakers for the classroom. This has made class a little easier, but by the time she arrives home, she is exhausted. At home Sarah becomes frustrated with spelling words. • She also has a learning disorder that has not been identified yet. Her mother believes that she has dyslexia because she often reverses the order of letters when she pronounces words. She is easily frustrated by homework and needs a lot of help, which is provided by her mom. She also has memory problems which makes it harder to learn vocabulary. • Statement of need: Sarah needs something to help her learn spelling words independently and stress free.

3. Requirements and Constraints • The product has to be safe for the client to use. • The product must be completed in our time frame. • Costs must be under $150. • The final product has to appeal to the child. • The product must be easy to use. • She needs to be able to hear it easily. • Power Source • Should be easy to move for transportation. • Durability • Usable for easy and complex spelling words. • Product should be fun and stress free for our client.

4. Market • Technology that already exists could be branched off of and we could add to the existing products. For people such as our client, useful technology would include: word processors, reading systems, phonetic spelling, and speech recognition. All of the above technologies have been modified to help people with dyslexia. Since our client has problems remembering vocabulary words, we will most likely look into reading systems and phonetic spelling technologies. In these fields, we could create or modify something that fits our clients need. • Many of the products that are available for purchase are expensive and not user friendly. • Our client also stated that the speakers available at school were very expensive.

5. Puzzle Piece Spelling • My idea for puzzle piece spelling would be a fun way to help our client learn her spelling words. Her mother could record the spelling words at the beginning of the week. Then her daughter would first have to arrange the puzzle pieces in alphabetic order and then the recording would start. The first word would play and she would have to spell the word by pushing the corresponding letters on the board. Once she had gotten it right, the next word would play and she would have to spell that to continue.The board would be colorful and have lights when buttons were pushed. This would hopefully make her a little more independent and the colors and lights would reduce stress.

6. A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Pros and Cons Pro: Design will make homework fun and Sarah will be less stressed. Pro: Encourages Sarah to learn her spelling words. Pro: Sarah can depend less on her mother to learn the spelling words. Con: Since there is only two of us making this project would be very time consuming. Con: Lots of buttons means a lot of inputs.

7. Keyboard Spelling • This plan is to help our client learn her vocabulary using a recording and a keyboard. The client's mother would record the weekly words so her daughter could listen to the recording to do her homework. upon hearing the words in the recording, our client would then type or spell out the word onto the keyboard. There will also be Leds on the keyboard to show if the word typed was right or wrong. The way this plan would work is to modify a keyboard so it will understand when the right keys are pressed. There will be a way to hook up the keyboard and recorder together so when our client hears the word being spelled out, and when she hits the keys, she will know if shes hitting the keys in the right order. What also could be considered is somehow make each word correspond with a key on the keyboard so when the key is pressed, the board will know what order the keys should be pressed.

8. Pros and Cons Pro: Less time building. Pro: Our client will be able to learn be hearing and typing. Pro: Simplistic design for easy use, Con: Very plain. Con: Client’s mother needs to be involved. Con: Connecting the recorder and the keyboard to react with button pushing will be hard.

9. Final Project Idea Our final decision was that we could combine the two ideas. In order to save time, we will utilize an existing keyboard. Then we will use a chip with 36 inputs to modify the keyboard. Spelling words will be added from the computer. The words will play back and she will need to press the corresponding buttons on the keyboard. This is the type of keyboard that we would like to use. Since it only has letters there are less inputs and the arrow could be used to advance to the next word.