My mother copied a notebook by hand. The machine does the same job
My mother made a handwritten notebook. In her time that was the largest technical investment she could make in her children.
There was no television and few books, so she copied things she thought were worth keeping out of newspapers and magazines, one passage at a time, until it was thick enough to be a book. I have turned its pages. I still remember the cover. She used her hands, her time and every method available to her so that we could see something of the world outside.
We also had a Sanyo tape recorder. My father worked away and came home about twice a year. Before each departure he would sit down and record a cassette, saying the things he thought we should know and should watch out for, one at a time. Those words were still there while he was not.
Between them, that was the whole of how their generation used technology for education.
The route here was not straight
I studied chemistry, partly because the only visible female role model at the time seemed to be Marie Curie, appearing over and over. Whether that shaped the decision is hard to say now. I did not become Marie Curie. I went around a long way, studied fine art, worked in IoT, spent time near games, and ended up in AI hardware.
What we build
What we make is AI in physical hardware rather than an app. A projector sits on the table and works from power-on. A child and a parent tell their own story out loud, and the system generates a picture book from it, illustrated and read back. The story is theirs. It is not a template being chosen, it comes out of their heads.
There are guided questions in it too, not as a test but to push a little deeper. Why did this character do that. What if the ending were different.
I once watched a mother and son use it. They told a story about a small monster in the sea, the images came out close to what they had described, and both of them laughed. That was the moment I decided this was worth continuing.
What changed and what did not
What my mother's notebook did, this machine also does, which is to let a child see a larger world. The tool changed. The starting point did not.
The difference is who is doing it. Back then a parent gave, alone. Now the family writes together. The child tells the story, the parent fills in details, the system draws it and keeps it. Years later they can open it and it is theirs.
A family notebook for a new era, without copying it out line by line. The effort has not gone anywhere.
Related
- AI Storybook Projector — bilingual story engine, print the good ones
- AI HDMI TV Stick — the same story engine on a TV you already own
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