//Jellow - A happiness device for the cerebral palsy kids
What?
Jellow is an attempt to bridge the gap in communication between those affected by cerebral palsy and those not. Cerebral palsy, which is often misunderstood as a disability or a disease pertaining to brain efficiency, is a medical condition involving motor sensory coordination or the lack of it, affecting the control of the muscles and leading to muscle impairment.
Why?
Cerebral Palsy affects (among other functions) the speech and writing abilities and prevents her/him from communicating with others. Inability to communicate could, in turn lead to isolation outside of their special school support structure, distance them from the mainstream world and set in frustration amongst the cerebral palsy.
The focus of the problem has been on facilitating communication in the emotional domain since this remains a completely unaddressed area. It is possible that some of the ensuing product functions will additionally facilitate communication problems in the physical domain, as well as be physically therapeutic for the cerebral palsy child in the manner of a comfort blanket.
How?
The basis of the product is an Emotional Language Protocol (elp) that works as its interface and is driven by four concurrently acting features - color, shape, motion and sound - corresponding to the sensory modes of the visual, the tactile and the aural. The interaction itself is facilitated by touch of varying intensities including pressing, thumping, squeezing, turning and, of course, by touching. Those not affected by cerebral palsy may additionally use speech along with touch.
The interplay of this interface and interaction allows the cerebral palsy child to express his different needs and emotions to another person – cerebral palsy or otherwise. Also, Jellow’s mobile connectivity allows its users to communicate with someone far away.
I currently have a embedded hardware running a customized debian on a Intel Celeron, with a touchscreen. The dimensions of the device are 8" X 5" and weighs sub-1kg (battery inclusive). The next goal is to integrate pressure sensors and design the UI. The major challenge was to get a embedded hardware up and running within the size constraints. From the OS point of view, enabling Ad-hoc bluetooth connection between two Jellows without any need of manual configurations was a challenging task - hence automating the entire networking process. The device can be effectively used in schools for teaching - a .env (environment file) has been designed to enable loading any environment onto the device's GUI.
And..
Jellow is the start of an emotional language protocol that has the potential for customization and upgradation to suit the adult cerebral palsy in future. In a limited but new way, the idea was to open up the otherwise different worlds of those affected and those not affected by cerebral palsy. And bring them together into closer emotional contact with each another.
The device (hardware + application + OS) are ready, look out this space for pics and videos of Jellow. Jellow has been ideated at Industrial Design Center, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay under Prof. Ravi Poovaiah and Dr. Ajanta Sen. I have been working with Prof. Keyur Sorathia on the project and is sponsored by Microsoft Research, Redmond.
I won the Texas Instruments International BeagleBoard Design Competition for my implementation designs of Jellow on a BeagleBoard.
//Jellow - A happiness device for the cerebral palsy kids
What?
Jellow is an attempt to bridge the gap in communication between those affected by cerebral palsy and those not. Cerebral palsy, which is often misunderstood as a disability or a disease pertaining to brain efficiency, is a medical condition involving motor sensory coordination or the lack of it, affecting the control of the muscles and leading to muscle impairment.
Why?
Cerebral Palsy affects (among other functions) the speech and writing abilities and prevents her/him from communicating with others. Inability to communicate could, in turn lead to isolation outside of their special school support structure, distance them from the mainstream world and set in frustration amongst the cerebral palsy.
The focus of the problem has been on facilitating communication in the emotional domain since this remains a completely unaddressed area. It is possible that some of the ensuing product functions will additionally facilitate communication problems in the physical domain, as well as be physically therapeutic for the cerebral palsy child in the manner of a comfort blanket.
How?
The basis of the product is an Emotional Language Protocol (elp) that works as its interface and is driven by four concurrently acting features - color, shape, motion and sound - corresponding to the sensory modes of the visual, the tactile and the aural. The interaction itself is facilitated by touch of varying intensities including pressing, thumping, squeezing, turning and, of course, by touching. Those not affected by cerebral palsy may additionally use speech along with touch.
The interplay of this interface and interaction allows the cerebral palsy child to express his different needs and emotions to another person – cerebral palsy or otherwise. Also, Jellow’s mobile connectivity allows its users to communicate with someone far away.
I currently have a embedded hardware running a customized debian on a Intel Celeron, with a touchscreen. The dimensions of the device are 8" X 5" and weighs sub-1kg (battery inclusive). The next goal is to integrate pressure sensors and design the UI. The major challenge was to get a embedded hardware up and running within the size constraints. From the OS point of view, enabling Ad-hoc bluetooth connection between two Jellows without any need of manual configurations was a challenging task - hence automating the entire networking process. The device can be effectively used in schools for teaching - a .env (environment file) has been designed to enable loading any environment onto the device's GUI.
And..
Jellow is the start of an emotional language protocol that has the potential for customization and upgradation to suit the adult cerebral palsy in future. In a limited but new way, the idea was to open up the otherwise different worlds of those affected and those not affected by cerebral palsy. And bring them together into closer emotional contact with each another.
The device (hardware + application + OS) are ready, look out this space for pics and videos of Jellow. Jellow has been ideated at Industrial Design Center, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay under Prof. Ravi Poovaiah and Dr. Ajanta Sen. I have been working with Prof. Keyur Sorathia on the project and is sponsored by Microsoft Research, Redmond.
I won the Texas Instruments International BeagleBoard Design Competition for my implementation designs of Jellow on a BeagleBoard.
