DIY Assistive Technologies

SenseBox: An Audio Interface Prototyping Platform for Music and Speech Language Therapy

There is a green enclosure on the left and a series of credit card-sized and round RFID tags on a table.

SenseBox is a Raspberry Pi-based system that plays back audio files by detecting objects embedded with Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tags. Users can embed small tags into a variety of physical objects, including 3D printed ones, to use them as audio triggers.

A schematic of SenseBox that shows its components that include a Raspberry Pi microcomputer, a RFID reader, a battery, and a microSD card among others.

SenseBox is designed as a prototyping platform for use by music therapists, teachers and people with disabilities themselves to build customized and accessible audio interfaces. Please watch the following video about SenseBox:

TalkBox: An Open-Source Communication Board for Non-verbal Users

Top photo shows a girl in a wheel chair with a customized touch board on its tray. Bottom photo shows a touch board with several conductive buttons and corresponding images.

TalkBox is a low-cost open-source communication board for non-verbal users. It can either be used by people who require a small number of speech choices or when conventional communication boards are not available (e.g., when clients are waiting to receive them). It combines a Raspberry Pi and a touch-sensor to implement a customizable tangible interface to playback speech and sound files.

A child is assembling a TalkBox on a table with the help of two adults.

A key aspect of this project is that it is designed to be assembled by users and their families themselves. For the past five years, we have conducted a number of workshops in Canada, United States and Kenya, in which therapists, teachers, parents and individuals with disabilities themselves built and customized their own TalkBoxs.

Relevant Publications:
Hamidi, F., Kumar, S., Dorfman, M., Ojo, F., Kottapalli, M., and Hurst, A. 2019. SenseBox: A DIY Prototyping Platform to Create Audio Interfaces for Therapy. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI’19), New York, NY: ACM Press, 25-34.

Haworth, B., Usman, M., Baljko, M., Hamidi, F. The Use of Working Prototypes for Participatory Design with People with Disabilities. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs – ICCHP'16, 2016, 134-141. Available online.

Hamidi, F., Baljko, M., Kunic, T., Feraday, R. A DIY Communication Board Case Study. Journal of Assistive Technologies, 9(4), 2015, 187-198. Available online.

Hamidi, F., Baljko, M. Kunic, T., Feraday, R. Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Assistive Technology: A Communication Board Case Study. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs – ICCHP 2014. 2014, 287-294. Berlin: Springer. Available Online.

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