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Turnlea The Talking Tree

Watch conversations grow, one turn at a time.

A multisensory, interactive device designed to support autistic children (ages 6-12) in developing conversational turn-taking skills, reinforcing smoother peer interactions and stronger social connections.

The Challenge & Our Mission

Bridging the Conversational Gap

For autistic children aged 6-12, natural conversation can be overwhelming. They frequently face difficulties with:

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  • Conversational turn-taking

  • Staying on topic

  • Reading subtle emotional cues

Which leads to our goal:

To utilize targeted facilitation to guide "my turn / your turn" dynamics without interrupting the natural flow of conversation. By providing a low-pressure space to rehearse these skills, Turnlea helps children transition their practice into real-world settings.

Meet Turnlea

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Built on Raspberry Pi 5, with cloud‑capable pathways for future AI‑powered speech and emotion‑sensing features.

A simple web‑based dashboard lets parents and caregivers monitor how often their child initiates turns, responds, and completes exchanges over time.

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How it Works

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Under the Hood: The Technology

 Turnlea operates on 6 integrated sub-systems to process interactions in real-time:

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  1. Emotion Recognition: Dual IMX219 cameras use OpenCV's DNN to classify 8 facial emotions, while an acoustic heuristic analyzes sound waves with zero latency.

  2. Transcription: An xvf3800 microphone captures speech, transcribed instantly via Whisper.cpp.

  3. NFC Integration: An NTAG 215 reader instantly detects the child's chosen topic card.

  4. Local LLM: Powered by Qwen2.5 (1.5b), the system uses a strict "System Prompt" for rules and a "Local Soul" prompt to give Turnlea its friendly personality.

  5. Text-to-Speech: Piper Voice generates natural, comforting verbal outputs accompanied by visual light cues.

  6. Cloud Stack: Hosted on Vercel, the system sends HTTP requests to automatically update the caregiver's front-end dashboard.

Real-World Validation

Tested and Loved by Children and Caregivers

 

We conducted extensive trials with autistic children across varying communication levels.

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  • High Comprehension: Users understood prompts and independently interacted with the physical device and NFC cards.

  • Effective Safeguards: Turnlea's "mean word safeguard" successfully detected frustrated outbursts and instantly switched to calming breathing guides.

  • Durability: The 3D-printed, lightweight base survived enthusiastic hugging, drops, and rough play.

Created by LevelUp Labs
Team: Maddi, Fah, Fiona, Yash, Daisy

ISDN2001/2002: Second Year Design Project

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