Christos C: Hardware Protype and Ideas

I came up with a sketch of how the actual product could look. I have uploaded the sketches and I will probably create a digital version so we can manipulate it easily.

The first image is the external design of the pen. It features a rounded egde at the bottom to keep children from accidentally injure themeselves (or someone else). There is a soft grip so that the pen is comfortable to hold to and it should come in various colourful desings so that it attracts the attention of children. At the top there is an LCD screen as a secondary communication method and a multi-purpose button. When the button is pressed for 5-6 seconds the pen turns on and off and when clicked it should enter input mode for the child to say the word that he/she is trying to write. If the button is pressed before the child completes the word the pen will spell the current letter. When the number of letters in the spoken word are reached the pen will automatically evaluate the word written by the child and report any errors.



The second image is the internal components of the pen. The bottom of the pen unscrews and can be replaced when there is no more ink to write. The top part of the pen will contain an electronic gyroscope to record the motions of the childs hand and predict the letter written by the child. There should be a cpu with some rewritable memory to perform the computations needed for the letter recognitions, the speech recognition and to hold the dictionary. Moreover there should be a microphone so that the children can tell the pen which word they want to write and a speaker so that the pen can communicate with the children. A wi/fi and/or bluetooth chip should be present so that the pen can communicate with a computer and download dictionaries.