Audible Memo Board Phase II (08009) The Project Customer: Irene Sponsor: Tala Hopkins Consultant: Dr. Hopkins Advisor: Dr. Slack The project required the design of a calendar that would be usable by the blind and those with a poor sense of touch. Our solution is a calendar that lets her easily record and playback voice messages. TEAM MEMBERS Jim Varghese – Electrical Engineer, Schematic, Power Loic Hureau – Electrical Engineer, Audio In/Out, Board Population Jon Gosliga* – Electrical Engineer, Audio In/Out, Cabling Alex Gorevski – Computer Engineer, A/D-D/A, Software * - Team Leader USER INTERFACE Project Objective To re-evaluate the original audible memo board design, improve upon, and add unimplemented functionality. The audible memo board enables a blind person with neuropathy in the fingertips to keep track of appointments through a voice recording and playbacks using a memory subsystem. This device serves the same purpose a paper calendar would for a person with sufficient sight. Electronics This record and playback device centers on an Atmel microcontroller with multiple subsystems, including analog-digital conversion and a NAND Flash memory subsystem. The Electronics design includes three distinct subsystems. The audio-input subsystem includes a noise-cancelling microphone, audio preamplifier and filter design. The audio-output subsystem includes a digital-analog conversion chip, a series of amplifiers, and filters to cancel out and soften background noises and extremely high and low frequencies when dealing with voice communication, including a speaker built into the device as well as a speaker that may be plugged in externally for louder output. The microprocessor subsystem handled all of the memory storage and playback in a NAND Flash memory bank, the background logic which drives the device, and reading the current time and date from the internal clock chip. The user-interface buttons were constantly polled to simulate interrupt-driven user control. The power supply design featured a wall-mounted twelve-volt supply feeding 12V to voltage conversion circuitry to provide 4 DC voltage levels needed by the electronics. Features The audible memo device is an audible electronic calendar, which enables the user to record appointments and memos, and play them back when needed. The user interface includes 42 buttons, each pertaining to a day of the week, and Velcro strip on the middle column to denote Wednesday. Large colorful buttons will help the customer differentiate the buttons. The device also makes it possible to play back and skip to the desired message that was recorded. The audible memo allows the user to record and playback multiple appointments on one day. To help the user navigate the keyboard, the device includes audio prompts and confirmation for button presses. Appointments can easily be retrieved by pressing a calendar button which will automatically play all the messages that have been recorded on that day. In addition to the calendar, the board offers a memo page. This page is intended for recording things like phone numbers and it is accessed by pressing the memo page button. To announce the current day and time a clock button has been included. The Team Electronics Circuit Board Subsystem Design & Logic Layout Circuitry Memory Hierarchy Locations [0  95] Instructional Memory & Reserved Storage Locations [96  828] Calendar Pointer Locations for up to Two Years Locations [829  812] Temporary Memory Storage Locations [813  2047] Free Memory Storage Area 4 Blocks = 60 Seconds of Record Time Memos and Messages can be recorded and played back for up to 60 seconds. Instructional messages are re- recordable and can have up to a duration of 15 seconds.