1.  Dorji Dema: IE Teacher (Team Leader)
2. Kinzang Choden:  IE Teacher (Pre-Testing Leader)
3. Pelden Wangchuk: IE Teacher (Sub Leader)

4. Jamphel Kuendhen: Choego FabLab Student (Prototyping/Documentation Leader)

Thai Khendrup Jurmey (10-years) class PP at Zhemgang PS, has ASD. He is nonverbal (use sounds and gestures to communicate) making it hard for teachers and caregivers to understand him. He struggles with self-care, short attention span, poor eye contact, and needs constant support for daily tasks.

For the needs identified above, we proceeded to the idea-sketch phase and settled down with the two product ideas that will serve for addressing the problems of the need-knower.

The need-knower stops tooth-brushing after moving the brush just once or twice. So our idea is that the teacher gives a token to him every time he brushes five times and he deposits it in the bank. After the deposit reaches the threshold, he could receive a certain benefit. 

It helps the need-knower to send his message about yes/no answer, feelings and what he wants teachers and his family to do for him by pressing the respective buttons. Once button is pressed, voice message is automatically sent out from the speaker.

We are going to use the screw caps of the PET bottles as colorful token for our prototype. The screw caps are abundant resources available in the school. We measured the diameter of the screw cap to come up with specific dimensions for the width, depth and height of the Token Bank.

We designed the box by Autodesk Fusion. The stl file was sliced by Prusa Slicer with generic PLA filament. We printed it with the Prusa 3D printer and it took approximately five hours.

It's a web-based assistive communication tool designed to help individuals with speech or communication challenges express their needs and feelings effectively.

We designed the keycaps on Tinkercad for 3D-printing with PLA filament.

Then we designed the image stickers so that the need-knower could express their feeling. After the interview with the SEN teacher, we shortlisted the six images and designed a simple sticker with Illustrator for vinyl-cutting. For prototyping, we chose three messages. 

We designed the enclosure on Tinkercad for 3D-printing with PLA filament.

Built around an ESP32 microcontroller, this project combines physical buttons and a responsive web interface to enable users to trigger predefined phrases, which are then spoken aloud using the browser's speech synthesis capabilities.

It includes physical buttons for accessibility, a user-friendly web interface, real-time feedback, and WiFi connectivity. ESP32 hosts a web server, enabling interaction from any device on the same network. Users can press buttons physically or on the web page to trigger spoken phrases.

Due to the time constraints, we could only complete the token bank of three tokens vertically and the sample communication board on the breadboard. 

The token bank is user-friendly and can be customized based on the activity being conducted. It also helps children learn various concepts effectively. It work as a motivational tools for them to carry out the next activity improving their conduct of the activities. 

It is highly effective for both users and caregivers. The pictures on the keys assist students in understanding their needs, and as they press each button accordingly, the caregiver can immediately recognize and respond to their needs, facilitating better communication.

The need-knower and his teacher are based in a remote dzongkhag from any of the FabLabs or space equipped with 3D-printers. Also, they don't have any facility for electronics works. Therefore, we feel that we should stay engaged in further improving the system until the final deployment.

• Add more buttons and phrases to expand the range of communication options.
•  Implement a mobile app for easier access and portability.
•  Integrate text-to-speech customization (e.g., voice selection, speech rate).
•  Add support for multiple languages to make the system more inclusive.

Even though they have limited access to the production facility, the teachers could work on designing or customizing the existing design locally.  We provided a brief Tinkercad training session to the member SEN teachers, hoping they could further collaborate with local STEM teacher.