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A talking, rugged, .MP3 player for my blind mentally retarded older brother

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I'm looking for a specialized .MP3 player for my older handicapped brother.  He is forever 4, although his body is aged 52 years.  He loves to smash, throw things, he uses rage tantrums to get his way.  He has been losing his vision.  I don't know how bad it really is because he won't answer my questions reliably.  He cannot read in the traditional sense.  What I mean is he can understand brands such as signs and logos.  He has enormous strength matched with a high tolerance for pain.  He has snapped the key off in the door by turning it too hard.  Patience is not one of his virtues.

 

Can you make a .MP3 player with a USB 2.0 or 3.0 connector and built-in speaker that is housed in a case that has no sharp edges or corners?  Something that is waterproof, has a rugged rubberized exterior, with large clearly defined buttons and a rotary knob possibly with flanges?  The rotary knob would serve as a genre selector.  When he chooses the "Country music" setting the .MP3 player would clearly state "Country Music Selected".  There would need to be 2-3 buttons (green dome circular button for Play All at Random, red square or American stop sign shaped button for "Stop All Playback", yellow triangle shaped button to either Pause playback or switch to FM radio mode.  Volume controls could be another knob or clearly defined arrows for up and down.

 

A built-in pair of stereo speakers and a 1/4 inch headphones jack should round out the external features.  The chassis does not need to be small.  He has some problem using small objects.  It needs to be battery powered.  Something that I can easily copy new music files to or just use a larger capacity USB flash drive and SDXC type flash memory card.  It would be ideal if the batteries were common off the shelf AA, AAA, C, or D type batteries. 

 

Thank you,

 

 

Bruce Berryhill

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    Hi Bruce,

     

    I think I can understand what do you mean. My suggestion is moving through two separate steps. The first is selecting a reliable hardware to make an "advanced" MP3 player. I suggest the Raspberry PI as well as the BBB; the reason is that you can make complex software automatic most of the passages a user is usually expected to do. This implies I think not a great job on hardware but a good software development. Then add some sensors; for example a simple accelerometer can detect the current inertia of the device and stop playing when it is tossed somewhere. The second step is designing a reasonably large shell that can contain the hardware, few and simple display: every different situation can be shown as different, clear and bright colour patterns with LEDs (maybe the HAT for the Raspi or similar). Make BIG the play pause stop buttons (you can solve with three ones only or four for the more standard MP3 players controls).Then if you can 3D print all the stuff you can get a reasonably large and visibile system, with the buttons engraved and enlightened (changing colour or with different colours) easy to recognise by touch too.

    Large and robust shell with a protected and screwed lock for the battery holder and any other kind of connector may be this device something almost robust to resist. Better if you can 3D print the box as when it is too much devastated you can make a new one without serious damage for the internal components.

     

    Enrico

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  • 0

    Hi Bruce,

     

    I think I can understand what do you mean. My suggestion is moving through two separate steps. The first is selecting a reliable hardware to make an "advanced" MP3 player. I suggest the Raspberry PI as well as the BBB; the reason is that you can make complex software automatic most of the passages a user is usually expected to do. This implies I think not a great job on hardware but a good software development. Then add some sensors; for example a simple accelerometer can detect the current inertia of the device and stop playing when it is tossed somewhere. The second step is designing a reasonably large shell that can contain the hardware, few and simple display: every different situation can be shown as different, clear and bright colour patterns with LEDs (maybe the HAT for the Raspi or similar). Make BIG the play pause stop buttons (you can solve with three ones only or four for the more standard MP3 players controls).Then if you can 3D print all the stuff you can get a reasonably large and visibile system, with the buttons engraved and enlightened (changing colour or with different colours) easy to recognise by touch too.

    Large and robust shell with a protected and screwed lock for the battery holder and any other kind of connector may be this device something almost robust to resist. Better if you can 3D print the box as when it is too much devastated you can make a new one without serious damage for the internal components.

     

    Enrico

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