Robotics Students Design Adaptive Technology
Robotics students collaborated with a Barstow alumna to design affordable, customizable assistive technology that helps individuals with communication impairments.
Their work was presented Thursday, Oct. 1, at the Kansas Speech-Language-Hearing Association Conference, where their poster proposal was one of only 18 accepted for presentation statewide.
The project began in fall 2025, when FIRST Robotics Team 1939 students explored ways to use their engineering and design skills to improve accessibility. After learning about a patient at JayStart, the University of Kansas Medical Center's (KUMC) pro bono clinic, who relied on a dry-erase board to communicate, the students set out to develop a more efficient, affordable solution.
Junior James Barber designed a 3D-printed alphabet board, called the J-Board, featuring a built-in key guard, a whiteboard and customizable windows on the back. Inspired by high-tech augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems, the low-tech device helps users communicate by selecting letters and symbols. Unlike many existing options, the J-Board can be produced for less than $10 using a hobby-level, multi-color 3D printer.
Sophomore Zahra Khumri built on James' original design, using parametric modeling to make the board's size and layout easily customizable to individual needs. She also toured the KUMC AAC Lab, sponsored by Children's Miracle Network, and studied existing communication systems to ensure the design aligned with established AAC languages and practices.
Barstow alumna Kat Somogie '25, a former robotics team member, provided CAD mentoring and design support, while Melanie Somogie, a former robotics volunteer and clinical assistant professor at KUMC, contributed expertise. Together, the team refined the design and explored ways to expand access to the technology.
The initial J-Board demonstrated promising results: the patient who inspired the project was able to communicate in fewer than one minute per word. Since then, the team has gathered feedback from speech-language pathologists, distributed more than 15 boards throughout the Kansas City area and begun developing a second-generation model.
Their conference presentation, "Improving Access to Low-Tech AAC: Design and Distribution of a 3D-Printed AAC Board," highlights how student-led engineering, mentorship and collaboration can address real-world accessibility challenges.
