0.7 Product introduction  (Page 5/3)

What it looked like

The product that we created did not look at all like the original concept. If you look back at Chapter 1, you'll see Paul's original concept, both as he drew it in his engineering notebook, and how it was redrawn for later presentations. The name also changed from "Spelling Bee" to "Speak N Spell". The reasoning for the name change was to emphasize the fact that this new product could speak. It also allowed for follow on products like the "Speak N Read" and "Speak N Math".

The final product design looked more like a book with a handle on it than a child's toy. The color choice was a bit of a surprise but was, in fact, a good choice for the product. As you can see from Figure 1, the keyboard was laid out in alphabetical order with the vowels highlighted. The original Speak N Spell had raised push buttons, but was modified to have a flat membrane keyboard in the third year of production. The display was a green vacuum florescent, all capital, alpha-numeric display (Figure 2). We had many discussions about what size of batteries we would use, finally choosing "C" cells, which gave us the best trade off between product thickness and battery life.

The Speak N Spell was introduced without a power adapter, although the circuitry for the adapter was designed in but not populated with components (see figure 1, lower left hand corner). It was not populated, as I did not believe that a child of the age the product was designed for was mature enough to properly plug something into the wall. We did create an educator's version which could be used in the classroom. This version did have a power adapter, so that teachers could use it in their classrooms without having to spend a fortune on batteries. The educator's version also had a plug for a headset so that the whole class was not disturbed when one student was playing with the Speak N Spell.

How it worked

The Speak N Spell's main purpose was to help students learn to spell. It seemed every parent and teacher knew how this process of learning played out. The words were pronounced by the parent and the student is then asked to spell the pronounced word. The student then attempted to spell the word. If spelled wrong the parent asked them to try again with perhaps a hint or two to help the student. After the student had given up on trying to spell the word, the parent spelled it and then would go on to the next word on the list. If the student spelled that word correctly, the parent praised the accomplishment before going to the next word on the list. This was the obvious algorithm for the Speak N Spell to use. But to enhance the learning and fun the product actually had five different learning activities: