DUSTIN'S WORDS

This is the story of a language without words, and an invention that seeks to bridge the gap between being heard and being understood. Follow our team as we prototype, test, and iterate with real families and their non-verbal loved ones. #autism...

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Thanks to all of our supporters who helped us reach half of our goal! #assistivetechnology #startup #indiegogo

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Donate a button so we can give 100 devices to 100 families in need! 

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LOOK WHO'S TALKING

Since we have launched the Indiegogo campaign, a lot of folks have reached out willing to help spread the word and assist us throughout the production process of Dustin's Words. 

Thanks to you all and if you'd like to help share our story please, feel free to contact us at [email protected]. Without you all, we cannot make Dustin's Words a reality for families in need!

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Buttons on a Brother’s Keeper

Matt Reamer has been ”wearing this MakerBot out over the last few months in preparation for the product launch” of Dustin’s Words, a communication device named for Reamer’s autistic brother and designed for those who can’t ask for what they need. The Dustin’s Words team used the 3D printer to prototype structures and casings for the six-button device. (Matt Reamer via Indiegogo)

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Thanks, Sofia.

So randomly yesterday we get a notification that Sofia Vergara has shared our product and story with her social media followers. We were like...”uhhhhh this rules.” It did not translate into donations for our indiegogo campaign, but that’s not important. What’s important is that we raise awareness around the fact that there is a new breed of companies coming into this area of products that have the families and people that are in need in mind, and not money. 

Thank you, sofiavergara and you rule.

To find out more, visit our Indiegogo campaign - dustinswords.com/indiegogo

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A Designer Gave a Voice to His Brother With Autism — And Created Something Brilliant

Dustin's Words is much more than a speech tool.

Dustin's Words is much more than a speech tool. It’s an open source platform that can help many.

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Indiegogo - Day#2

It’s been really exciting as we continue to get emails from families who connect with what we are doing and would like us to help them. It makes it all worth it. We just wanted to say thank you. 

We’ve made it onto the Indiegogo homepage already and it seems pretty surreal. In this device’s inception, I thought it would be something that would mildly improve the day-to-day lives of my family but it has transformed into something a lot larger that can affects hundreds of families' lives. It's very humbling and I cannot wait to see how big we can make this and how many families we can help. 

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We are so excited to share our story with you guys. Help us better the day-to-day lives of 100 people who can’t speak by giving them the power to communicate at the push of a button.

http://dustinswords.com/indiegogo

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Happy Mother’s Day

Hey Mom, just wanted to let you know that we all love you and you’re amazing for doing all that you do. Imagine being in labor and you’ve dreamed of holding your newborn baby for 9 months and all of a sudden, right when the pressure is revealed and you think it’s time to meet your child, you hear nothing. You see doctors panic, and you see a near blue looking fetus. This was my mother's first experience when she was in labor with my brother Dustin. Dustin was born with a lack of oxygen in his in his blood which rendered his skin a blue tint. My mom says she was so shocked and devastated.

At this time, they asked my mother and family if they wanted the doctor to operate, or let him pass. My crying mother said, “We did all we could to get him here, and we will do all we can to keep him here” so they did. Dustin lived in the hospital the first few months of his life and this tore my family’s hearts into pieces. But this is a testimony to how strong my mother is and all the thousands of new mothers this happens to yearly. 

Because of her positive attitude, Dustin is alive today, 2 heart transplants later and loving life. Him and my mom are best friends, and rightful so. With the complications at birth, my brother has low physical and verbal abilities but if he could speak, he would tell my mom that he loves her with all of his being, and he thanks her for staying home and not working as a child, for all the hospital bills she paid and for dedicating her life to him. Instead, he just points at his heart and my mom knows what he means. 

To the most dynamic duo of all time, I love you Dustin and I love you mom.

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3D Printing Prototypes

We’ve been wearing this MakerBot out over the last few months in preparation for the product launch on Indiegogo in a few weeks. Day and night this little guy has been pumping out design after design as we continue to rapidly iterate on the design. 

The last month has been really exciting, as we’ve been working closely with and added a new member to the team that specializes in product/industrial design. Emmanuel has been a huge asset to us in thinking about Dustin’s Words as an actual scaleable product. We will be posting some design explorations of his in the coming days and we are all really excited with the directions.

- Matt

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User Testing

Last week, back in Richmond, we had a blast observing Dustin use his more new and improved prototype device. He helped key us in on what we are doing right, what we can improve and also bringing functionality and features ideas to our heads that we had not previous thought of. It’s always super insightful to see someone use your product and see their successes and struggles. 

Well, back to iterating the device. We are getting closer and closer with each day that passes.

- Matt

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Web App Explorations

As we move forward with the next iteration of Dustin’s Words, we want to leverage some of the interaction patterns established in the first distributions of the device and amplify their utility and functionality. 

Amplifying the usage of physical push buttons and fixed messaging has been our focus for awhile now. There have been multiple blog posts in the recent weeks about digital button explorations and this idea of a back end database that would allow caregivers the freedom of changing icons out in the digital buttons on the fly via a web app interface. Well, this week we got a working prototype up.

We’ve gotten the web app to a prototype phase in where we have a quick script to convert bitmap icons in a HEX format that we assign variables to within the Spark IDE. Our web app interface changes the variables assigned up buttons wirelessly and instantly. 

Feel free to ask questions in the comments section of this post. We are really excited to get some surface design and introduce more intuitive functionality.

- Matt

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PCBs Are In

First round of our manufactured PCB prototypes are in and they look great. We ordered this first round through a really cool shop in Portland, OSH Park,  and how they create batch PCB printing is by taking a few board designs from a lot of different people. This keeps high quality and inexpensive PCB manufacturing here in the USA. 

We are still looking at different PCB layouts and how to optimize the design and structure of the device but knowing the connections are all proper is a great step forward. More on the design front too, as we have recently parented with a designer out of Cinco Design Studio in Portland who will be bringing expertise to the product design process. 

- Matt

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Our Thought Process

We are currently in Virginia, testing Dustin’s Words with Dustin and speaking with others in the community about how we can make this device better and help as many people as possible.

A wall full of awesomeness is what we have in the photo above. We have been trying to document our entire design process. We feel like transparency in our design process is imperative to meet our goal of attracting others in the community to help where they can.  An inexpensive solution for nonverbal inexpensive communication is not going to be built by people in an office, but by many passionate people all over the world who have a vested interest in helping the people they love. This is why we plan to be an open source everything we do.

This transparency can help us refine the Dustin’s Words device quicker. We can quickly gather input from really smart people and perspective from actual users/caregivers. More to come on our rapid design process to come.

- Matt

[captaindemetrios]

This is the tumblr group hug. Pass it on.

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Hugs for everyone helping us to make Dustin's Words a reality!

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Virginia is for User Testing

In the indelible words of Toy Story’s Sheriff Woody, “Howdy, howdy, howdy!”

We’re in good ol’ Virginia for a few days doing some user testing with autistic kids, teachers, caregivers and, of course ... Dustin Reamer himself! We’ve been working on version 2.0 of Dustin’s Words, and we believe we’ve landed on a solution for a product we can scale at a reasonable price. We want to be able to help as many people as possible, so cost and experience are top of mind for our team.

We’ve refined interactions, buttons, and look and feel since the first iteration of the device–which was built specifically for Dustin. What we’re testing now is scalability (making sure this works for autistic adults and kids alike), ease-of-use, language, and ergonomics. 

So, why would a startup based in Los Angeles do all of this in Virginia?

Well, for one, it’s 1/2 of our team’s home. Matt, Dustin, Donnie, and Mary are all native-born Virginians. And since this project started with Matt & Dustin ... we’ve got a lot of connections to the autism / special education community here. We’re doing some testing with teachers and kids at Manchester High School tomorrow, and we’ll actually be interviewing Donnie’s sister while we’re here! She’s a behavioral therapist who works with autistic children. Amazing how many people are in this community, and how deeply committed they’ve been to helping us make Dustin’s Words a reality!

We’ll share all of our findings from our visit to Virginia over the next couple of weeks ... but what we could really use help with right now is connecting with more people in nonverbal communities around Los Angeles / SoCal. If you can help us connect with families of nonverbal autistic kids, people living with Rett Syndrome, or people who have lost the ability to speak because of stroke, or traumatic brain injury, please get in touch with us at [email protected]!

Also, check out our new about page to learn more about our team!

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Digital Button Exploration

We have been testing out some new button styles for the next version of Dustin’s Words. Currently, we are using analog arcade buttons with manual cut and inserted icon paper. While this has tested well and worked great as a low-fi means of communication, we’d really like to make Dustin’s Words more. Our big goal is for caregivers to have the ability to swap out icons as they need through a web app and the digital button displays also give us the ability to open the device up to two way communication, not just one.

What we have pictured above is an exploration we have been taking which mashed an LED display and cherry switch keyboard keys. We’ve combined these 2 with a 3D printed enclosure. As we looked for off the shelf solutions, we didn’t find anything that fit our visions. We still want the tactile feedback to remain, while introducing the digital element. Thus, we started to experiment. 

I’ll be posting more of these digital & tactile button experiments soon.

- Matt