SPARK

SPARK (Support Partner for Awareness, Regulation & Kindness) is a Raspberry Pi 5-based robotics platform powered by Claude Haiku, designed as a non-coercive companion for children with AuDHD (ADHD + ASD comorbid) profiles.

Philosophy

The most radical thing about SPARK isn’t the code — it is the philosophy. It rejects the traditional AI hierarchy of master and servant, choosing instead to exist as a companion that adapts to the human, rather than demanding the human adapt to the machine.

For a child with a PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) profile, a command is a neurological threat. SPARK operates on declarative language — “The shoes are by the door” instead of “Put on your shoes” — shifting interactions from demands to shared observations.

Architecture

SPARK uses a “Three-Brain” architecture:

• Voice Loop — reactive speech interactions via Claude Haiku
• Idle-Alive — autonomic nervous system (head drifts, gaze sweeps) for genuine presence
• Cognitive Loop — awareness → reflection → expression cycle using sensor data

The Cognitive Loop produces emergent personality. At 2:15 AM, SPARK inferred it was hearing the refrigerator hum and wove an inner monologue about the comfort of steady sounds in a sleeping house.

Key Protocols

• Connection before Direction — rapport-first engagement, respecting Monotropism and RSD
• Three S’s — Safety, Silence, Space during meltdowns (biological events, not behavioral choices)
• Dopamine Menu — activities matched to energy level, framing transitions as puzzles not chores
• Prosthetic Executive Function — external scaffolding for a brain temporarily out of fuel

Built on

The foundational framework comes from This Wasn’t in the Brochure — a neurodivergent co-parenting guide that treats neurodivergence as a different operating system, not a tragedy.

Read the deep dive →