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Wearable device for interactive and collaborative sound making for autistic people

Benjamin Leonard, C. (2022) Wearable device for interactive and collaborative sound making for autistic people.

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Abstract:Stimming is a repetitive action found among autistic people, like bouncing, jumping, flapping hands, etc. In the past it was suppressed as it was considered as odd actions. Suppressing it will create adverse psychological effects on autistic people. Recent research states that stimming creates positive feedback for them to relieve from stress. Even then, stimming was not encouraged and autistic people were judged often. This research aims to develop a prototype based on DivComp's sense-making concept. It is a framework that connects people from diverse backgrounds (autistic and neurotypical individuals) to understand each other better. For this problem statement, it is necessary to make a neurotypical (NT) person understand stimming and encourage autistic people to stim freely without negative feedback. A hardware and communication protocol to develop the prototype was selected based on the literature survey. It is necessary to create a prototype that consists of an audio recorder (microphone INMP441, storage, transfer), movement sensor (inertial measurement unit, IMU, Xsens Dot), microcontroller (ESP32) and soundscaper (Max/MSP) to involve in a sound collaboration activity. This prototype can record sounds on a button press and manipulate the recorded audio according to body movements using the soundscaper. A series of workshops with NT persons was conducted to find the preferred functionalities for developing and improving the prototype. Finally, the prototype was user-tested and evaluated for network latency. This research demonstrates that it is possible to engage in a sense-making activity using a low-cost prototype.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:EEMCS: Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
Programme:Embedded Systems MSc (60331)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/90476
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