Project Name: Shayne's Gift

Project Details

Reference Sponsoring Entity Commenced Status Budget

22-23 23-24         24-25     25-26

002-048 KIRRAmaker (Km) 20-12-2022 In-Progress    $40,000    Unallocated      Unallocated  Unallocated

Project Overview

This is an extra-Community project, that is it is not a Kirra Community project. It was an idea (and partly developed) by Pip Smit from Tara Spa Apartments. To provide people with a speech difficulty, however caused to have a speech capability.

We all take speech and the ability to communicate with each other for granted. Unfortunately, some people don't have this simple necessity, and you can only imagine how much more difficult it would be living in a world, that is even more isolating and frustrating, thank it already can be at times.

The background on this project is that a dearly loved and consistent member of the local Tara community, Shayne has difficulty speaking as a result of cerebral ataxia.  So the day after Pip's birthday he pulled me aside and suggested that we come up with a way, or a device or something, to allow Shayne to speak to anybody that he meets. We really wanted to hear what Shayne had to say about the many topics we all sat around discussing, as well as sharing his ideas and knowledge. We also knew that without Jo (his wife) present, although we tried, it was frustrating and Shayne's contribution to any conversation was limited. This project became something that we knew Jo would also appreciate.

After some deliberation and tossing around ideas, we settled on an application that would do this for Shayne. So we set about working it out, and creating this fantastic project.

This project and all its outcomes are to be freely available to anybody who needs this application. It is also free for people to download (as source code) and continue to develop. We ask, that you make those developments available to the other users and the general community which this application is designed for, and you do so without cost. This application may not be used for revenue generation and developers MUST NOT financially profit from any works derived from this product. It MUST be free for all who need it.

With special thanks to and assistance from:

• Syncfusion

• Microsoft Corporation

• Industry Fund Services Limited

• Ian Smith

• Pip Smit

• Tracey Mills

• Tara Spa Apartments

• Typewise

System Requirements:

• Microsoft Windows 10 compatible computer, or tablet. (Touch Screen Tablet is recommended) - with audio capability and an Internet connection for the AI. The AI element can be disabled for conversations when not in an Internet connected area.

User Guide:

• A user guide is currently been developed, and will be available shortly for those who need it.

Download and Source Code:

• Anybody that needs access to this application can freely download the Microsoft Windows version from this url. The source code is also freely available and can be downloaded from the Kirra Tara Projects GitHub repository.

Aim

Create a self-contained software device that enables people with speech issues and difficulty to actively talk with their loved ones, friends and have general conversations with anyone who is willing to listen.

Further development will see the system become capable of making telephone calls, and having the text to speech allow the user to interact with the other party.

Method

After some research, it was determined that this system was best suited to people who had at least a degree of mobility and hand control. This meant that we could use a touch screen with over sized buttons to control the application and allow the user to easily generate sentences to speak.

The application starts with a base list of 1,000 common words.

There are options to add custom word, terms, phrases, and sentences. The application uses Typewise's AI API engine to determine the next 20 possible words from each word that is added to a sentence. This makes the sentences easy to construct and reasonably quick. This API will also try to predict the parts necessary for complete sentences. Other Typewise API functions will be added in future iterations to allow greater response speed and some simple things like auto-correction.

This project is proudly supported with the help of Syncfusion, Microsoft and Industry Fund Services.

Conclusion

Kirra Tara's KIRRAmaker (Km) space will continue to provide resources, such as our Computer Lab and our development skills to ensure that this project continue to meet the changing needs of the users, and is developed to take advantage of the latest technology that is available.

All in all, the project has proved to be a great success and we firmly believe that it will assist in making the lives of people with a speech difficulty, better.

Future versions may be ported to Xamarin and made available for iOS and Android devices.