Patent ID: 11931183
Assignee: UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA RESEARCH FOUNDATION, INC.
Field: Medical technology (Instruments)
Classification: CPC A  G | IPC A  G

Claim 0:
1. An apparatus for play therapy diagnostics and treatment, the apparatus comprising:
a microcontroller affixed inside a physical toy, the microcontroller having an embedded operating system reading stored instructions to execute functions and procedures according to computer-readable code;
a battery secured inside the physical toy and electrically coupled to the microcontroller to power it;
a plurality of pressure sensors affixed inside or upon the surface of the physical toy, the sensors communicatively coupled to the microcontroller through an input/output (I/O) connection, the pressure sensors configured to detect force imparted upon the sensor measured by a resistance drop to electrical current running through each sensor, each sensor connected through a dedicated I/O connection wherein the microcontroller contains instructions to poll the plurality of pressure sensors for a value representative of electrical resistance;
an accelerometer affixed inside or upon the surface of the physical toy, the accelerometer communicatively coupled to the microcontroller through another dedicated I/O connection whereby gravitational forces imparted on the physical toy are sensed by the accelerometer and communicated to the microcontroller;
a transceiver affixed inside or upon the surface of the physical toy, the transceiver communicatively coupled to the microcontroller and configured to transmit data collected by the pressure sensors and accelerometer to an external transceiver;
a computer workstation having a processor and computer-readable memory storing software for executing functions and procedures on the processor;
a digital camera configured to capture video of a play therapy session including at least one child interacting with the physical toy, the digital camera configured to encode an audiovisual stream into a storage device as stored video accessible by the processor;
a connection from the processor to the external transceiver, the external transceiver receiving timecoded accelerometer and pressure sensor data from the microcontroller in the physical toy during the play therapy session;
computer readable instructions in the computer workstation memory for generating an avatar of the physical toy and visually modifying the avatar responsive to pressure sensor data received from the microcontroller; and
a display device communicatively coupled to the computer workstation, configured to display the avatar and stored video of the play therapy session, wherein the modification of the visual representation of the avatar responsive to pressure sensor data is synchronized with the stored video.