Grace Orchard School (GOS) is a special school which provides holistic education to students wilth Mild Intellectual Disability (MID) and Mild Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The age of student ranges from 7 to 18 years old. It is situated in 6A Jurong West, Street 52. As part of the school’s effort to inculcate good values, and mannerism among their students, GOS had developed an innovative reward system to encourage and “celebrate” good behaviours. Each student is given a small card which he/she must bring to school every day. This enable teachers who spotted a good behaviours to seize a teachable moment to give acknowledgment; by giving the student a stamp mark on the card. Each stamp mark carries some points which the students could accumulate to exchange for some gifts in the “Treasury” cabinet. The Treasury cabinet is manned by a staff at various timeslots. One of the pain points in administrating this programme is to have staff to physically reward the students with gift that matches their accumulated points. It would be desirable to automate the gift dispensing operation. Bearing in mind the wide range of students’ age, gender and special needs; sound empathy studies and ergonomic consideration must be carried out.
Objectives: To design and build a low cost, reliable and user friendly Gift Vending Machine for dispensing relevant items that match students’ accumulated points. This is to encourage good behaviours among students and afford staff efficiency in administrating the reward system.
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