Collaborate on Blip
Blip is a personal project, not a company — but it's becoming real enough that I'm looking for people who want to work on it alongside me. Unpaid for now. The goal is to build something worth building.
What it is
A voice-first AI learning console for kids ages 6–9. A mini PC behind the living room TV. Kids say "Hey Blip" — a pixel hedgehog wakes up and runs spelling bees, stories, math, trivia, speech practice, and phonics. All voice processing is local. No audio leaves the device. A custom fine-tuned local model (blip-edu) handles structured activities; Claude handles open-ended conversation and storytelling.
My kids use it. Phase 1 (audio core) and Phase 2 (Claude integration + hybrid LLM routing + blip-edu fine-tune) are both complete. Phase 3 is the active build: the Electron TV UI. The pipeline works end-to-end. What it needs now is craft.
Where I'm looking for help
- Character design & pixel art — Blip is a teal pixel hedgehog who lives on the TV. Right now he's a 16×16 canvas sprite I drew myself. He needs a proper designer: multiple expressions, animation frames (listening, thinking, celebrating, sleeping), and a visual identity that works at every size. If you do pixel art or children's character design, this is the most visible role.
- Child education / curriculum — I'm a naturopathic doctor, not a curriculum specialist. The learning modules need structure: appropriate difficulty progressions, skill scaffolding, and evidence-based design for ages 6–9. If you're a teacher, reading specialist, or have a background in early childhood education, I want your input on how the modules are sequenced and what mastery looks like.
- Sound design & music — Blip needs a voice and a sonic identity. Right now TTS handles speech; everything else is silence. I'm looking for someone who can design earcons (short audio cues for correct/incorrect/celebration/wake), ambient background sounds for learning modes, and possibly a simple musical theme for the character. Should feel warm, not gamified.
- UX for young children — Designing for 6-year-olds is its own discipline. Voice interaction especially — no keyboard, no mouse, no text prompts. The UI needs to work for kids who can't yet read. If you've designed for this age group, I'd value someone who can audit the interaction model and identify where it breaks.
- Voice interaction design — Spoken dialogue is different from chat. Blip needs to handle interruptions, non-answers, tangents, and "I don't know" gracefully. The prompting strategy for Claude, how Blip asks follow-ups, when it reframes vs. moves on — these are conversation design problems. If you have experience with voice UI or conversational AI, this is an interesting problem space.
- Frontend / Electron development — The TV UI is an Electron app. Right now it's functional but not designed. It needs a proper visual layer: Blip's expressions, activity UIs (spelling bee display, math problems, story text), a parent dashboard, and smooth transitions. React/Electron experience relevant.
- Hardware & kiosk setup — The mini PC needs to boot straight into Blip, lock down the desktop, and recover gracefully from crashes. Windows kiosk mode configuration, auto-start logic, watchdog processes, and possibly a cleaner hardware enclosure. If you've done embedded or kiosk deployments, this is more interesting than it sounds.
- Early tester families — I need families with kids in the 6–9 range willing to use Blip in the home and give real feedback. Not a focus group — actually using it over several weeks and telling me what breaks, what the kids ignore, and what they ask for again. Pacific Northwest preferred for in-person setup, but remote testers are possible once the hardware setup is more streamlined.
What collaboration looks like
No equity, no contracts, no commitments right now. I'm honest about where this is: a working personal project that might become a product. If it does, people who contributed meaningfully will be part of that conversation. If it doesn't, you'll have worked on something real and interesting.
Practically: async, low-ceremony, direct. I ship code weekly. I write about what I'm building on this site. I'm not looking for project managers or people who want meetings — I'm looking for people who want to make something.
Get in touch
Email works: drbarrywheeler@gmail.com. Tell me which area you're interested in and why — a sentence or two is fine. Include anything relevant you've made.