Roamly

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  Caregiver Dashboard

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  Child Dashboard

My brothers Eden and Zeal have difficulty communicating. Watching them struggle to express basic needs , pain, hunger, emotion, while caregivers and therapists worked with limited tools inspired Roamly. Every existing AAC app felt clinical, expensive, or inaccessible. I wanted to build something that felt like it belonged to the child, not the institution.

Roamly is a daily companion app for nonverbal and autistic children with four modes. My Day uses Google Gemini AI to generate personalized daily routines based on each child's age and communication level, the caregiver describes the day in plain English and Gemini builds the visual schedule instantly. How I Feel lets children check in emotionally by tapping illustrated emotion islands, no reading required. My Voice is a full AAC sentence builder with 200+ words across 9 categories where children tap picture cards to build and speak sentences. Play and Learn features three therapeutic games, Memory Lights, Fix It, and What's Next, that assess working memory, grammar comprehension, and sequential reasoning while keeping children engaged. A real-time caregiver dashboard at roamly-dashboard.vercel.app shows all activity, AI-generated weekly insights, and exports professional PDF reports for therapists.

React Native and Expo for the mobile app, Next.js on Vercel for the caregiver dashboard, Supabase for the database and authentication, and Google Gemini API for routine generation, adaptive flashcard content, and caregiver insights. All illustrations are human-made from Storyset , no AI-generated art out of respect for artists. Phosphor Icons for the UI, expo-audio for ambient music, expo-speech for text-to-speech on every interaction.

Building a UI that works without reading a single word is genuinely hard. Every interaction had to be completable in under three taps with minimum 80px touch targets for children with motor differences. Offline-first architecture with AsyncStorage queuing meant the app works even when connectivity drops. The OneDrive sync conflict that deleted our entire project two hours before submission was not in the plan.

Every screen works without reading. Gemini generates routines personalized to each child's age, communication level, and therapeutic focus areas. The caregiver dashboard gives ABA therapists data they currently collect manually on paper. The potty tracking, health logging, and game performance data flow directly into AI-generated weekly reports. I built something real, not a demo, not a mockup.

Therapeutic design requires restraint. Every animation, every color choice, every word had to be intentional. ABA and speech therapy research shaped every decision. I also learned that OneDrive and Git are not friends.

The AAC Learn mode with flashcard activities for emotion recognition and vocabulary building. Video support via Pexels for activities like brushing teeth. Google and Apple OAuth. A therapist portal with multi-child management. And eventually, making it free for every family that needs it, because Eden and Zeal aren't the only ones.

Built With

• expo.io
• gemini
• javascript
• vercel