A letter block board with text-to-speech engine designed for tangible learning.
Brandon Roots
Description
Smart Tiles is a block board that recognizes wooden letter tiles to generate speech and play games. It operates entirely offline. The project was designed with my 4 year old niece and nephew in mind. They both enjoy playing with educational smartphone apps but I had a hard time finding any really compelling educational tangible toys for learning letters and words. This is my attempt to fill that gap. The letter tiles are designed to be familiar, like the wooden alphabet blocks I had growing up, and CNC milled from eco friendly Green-T Birch plywood. I have pushed to make the technology as “invisible” as possible to bring some magic to the user experience. Both English Braille and print characters are engraved on each block to be inclusive for tangible learners.