NewsRock

A University of Dundee Product Design Project. The Brief was to design a Product for a specific user that pulls data from the internet and through the use of an Arduino (a small computer), produces Sound.
Our user is a School Teacher who struggles to find relevant news to tell her Primary aged students. News Rock pulls headlines from a Children's News website called NewsRound. The website has 4 different categories of news; World, Sports, Entertainment and Animal.
Selecting and placing a rock in the curved tray will read news stories specific to that category. The stories are read using a text to Speech Function in a child's voice to make the product more comfortable.
The product uses RFID Tags which are in bedded in the tokens, and a RFID Reader which is found under the curved tray.
The hollow product base has been beautifully crafted from Plywood and the tokens from timber, each token has been etched with a logo specific to the news category.

Our user is now able to receive relevant news stories to tell to her pupils the next day, while she plans out her lessons.