[Blindmath] Future Engineering Student

Tue Jan 5 03:13:12 UTC 2010

Hi Matt,
I'm currently a senior electrical engineering major at Rice University, and 
MATLAB is the most useful engineering software I have. It can be used for 
anything from basic arithmetic to complex modeling, and it is very easy to 
use it to create graphs for assignments. You can give it commands solely 
through text, so I like it a lot better than Excel. There is a function you 
can download to sonify graphs (represent the height of the graph through a 
tone of varying pitch) at http://www.ski.org/skdtools/. It works reasonably 
well, but if you learn more about MATLAB, you could even write your own 
sonification function to fit your preferences better (I've been thinking 
about doing this for a while once I get the time). MATLAB works fine with 
JAWS once you set everything up, and the student license is only $100.

Programs like Mathematica and Maple are similar, but from my understanding 
they are better for symbolic, rather than numerical, computations. MATLAB 
seems to be more commonly used in engineering, but it would be worth 
checking to see what people at your university's mechanical engineering 
department use the most. Best of luck preparing for your freshman year!

Thanks,
Alysha
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Matthew Cooper" <matdawg17 at gmail.com>
To: "Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics" 
<blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 02, 2010 10:28 AM
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Future Engineering Student

> Thank you very much for your response!  One thing that I am
> particularly concerned is how I will do the advanced computations and
> graphical work in math and engineering courses.  What calculator
> options exist?  Would Matlab or Mathematica be something that would
> make these tasks possible?  Thanks very much!!   Matt
>
> On 1/2/10, Michael Whapples <mwhapples at aim.com> wrote:
>> Hello,
>> There's quite a lot to discuss from your question, so this message might
>> get quite long. Also what is relevant for you is probably best answered
>> by you, we can suggest and describe what we have found useful but what
>> works for one doesn't always work for all.
>>
>> Before discussing the various software and hardware, you might be
>> interested in the Summer University event John Gardner mentioned here
>> back in December (here is a link to his post
>> http://www.nfbnet.org/pipermail/blindmath_nfbnet.org/2009-December/002344.html
>> and here is a link to the information on the ICCHP website
>> http://www.icchp.org/call/summeruniversity). From what I understand this
>> would be a very good opportunity for you to learn about the various
>> things available which will help you in your studies and you are the
>> sort of student this is aimed at. I don't know how possible it would be
>> for you to attend.
>>
>> Software such as mathematica and maple are mainstream items of software
>> used in subjects using maths, it may be best to find out whether you
>> would be expected to use these for your course and possibly what parts
>> of the software you will be using. Once you know which software would be
>> used on your course then we could suggest how that particular product
>> can be made more accessible or a suitable alternative.
>>
>> Next mathtype, it is a add on for word to enable you to write equations
>> in a word document. This is a mainstream product but can be used by a
>> screen reader user if you use the LaTeX (see my section on LaTeX) input
>> mode for equations. There are a number of products which can produce
>> Braille/tactile output of mathtype documents. I am unsure of the
>> accessibility of reading documents prepared in mathtype, this is due to
>> me not actually trying it out for myself and most reports I hear about
>> mathtype focus on the creation of documents.
>>
>> Next I will mention LaTeX. This is an alternative document authoring
>> tool. The most significant difference with LaTeX is that you create the
>> document in plain text (so use what ever text editor takes your fancy,
>> even notepad although there are some text editors with LaTeX modes to
>> assist you author LaTeX documents) with special commands representing
>> formatting and advanced notation (eg. \frac{x}{y} would be the command
>> used for a fraction of x over y). When you want to produce standard
>> print notation to hand in, you use the LaTeX software to convert your
>> input file to an output format such as PDF. LaTeX is also a mainstream
>> item of software and is quite widely used with in mathematics and
>> science departments of universities, and due to this your final
>> documents look very good and professional. One of the problems with
>> LaTeX is that it differs significantly from standard graphical editors
>> such as Microsoft word and may be a bit hard to learn at first. Also
>> LaTeX can do so much, sometimes you may struggle to find what will do
>> precisely what you want or the default settings may not behave quite as
>> you want and you may need to do a lot of extra commands to force LaTeX
>> to behave as you want. For this reason LaTeX source documents can become
>> quite cluttered with extra commands and so I personally would only
>> recommend LaTeX for authoring documents (some here say they can read
>> anyone's LaTeX documents easily and comfortably and so are happy to read
>> documents in LaTeX, I feel that should be a last resort, accurate
>> Braille or dotsplus in my mind would be preferable for reading, remember
>> what works for one doesn't work for all).
>>
>> I additionally will add (as I have recently tried this) LaTeX can be put
>> to more uses than just producing mathematical documents, there's
>> packages for almost any type of document, for example you can produce a
>> presentation using the beamer package. My experience of using beamer
>> probably sums up LaTeX, it was quite easy to produce the slides except
>> for one little thing where I tried to include a sound but I couldn't get
>> it to auto play in the actual presentation despite having minimal
>> examples working fine and not seeing any obvious difference in how I had
>> done it, I had to be satisfied with a link to click to make the sound 
>> play.
>>
>> Just briefly to mention how LaTeX relates to mathtype. Even if you
>> decide not to go with LaTeX as your main way of producing documents, I
>> would strongly recommend learning some of the very basics of LaTeX as
>> some software (eg. mathtype) allows you to type in the LaTeX of an
>> equation, so saving you struggling with the graphical equation editor
>> interface. Also another time when LaTeX is useful is that some websites
>> (eg. wikipedia) display equations as images (not useful for screen
>> readers) but they do put the LaTeX source of the equation as the alt-tag
>> (at least that is some way of reading the equation).
>>
>> It now seems sensible to discuss maths on the web. As I mentioned some
>> websites use images with LaTeX alt-tags, but in my mind there is a
>> better solution (well at least in the long term it will be a better
>> solution), its mathml. Now you may here people mention mathplayer, its a
>> plugin for internet explorer to allow it to display mathml, but it also
>> allows a screen reader to speak the equations. Unfortunately mathplayer
>> only gets screen readers to speak the equations, this is a lack of
>> support from the screen readers so mathplayer couldn't get them to
>> display Braille even if design science wanted to. On this point I would
>> urge you to contact the producer of your screen reader supplier saying
>> you really want maths support and how you would like it to support maths
>> (eg. is Braille output important, where do you want math support,
>> online, in word (you may prefer not to work in LaTeX at all, sighted
>> users don't need to why should you need to use LaTeX input), etc).
>>
>> Now to produce mathml documents, mathtype can export to it, there are
>> systems for converting LaTeX source documents to mathml (eg. tex4ht) and
>> other software can export to it. MathML was never designed for people to
>> write directly, you will always want to use something else to produce
>> MathML and the same applies to reading a MathML document. The biggest
>> problem with MathML is decent accessible software for working with
>> MathML, but what exists may be enough for what you need.
>>
>> Now this might seem slightly out of place, but it isn't in my mind as it
>> uses mathml for the equations (or at least its based on mathml) is that
>> there is a plugin for exporting a word document to DAISY format. Now the
>> DAISY format is not something I have got into, probably because I value
>> Braille as a reading format too much and all you here about DAISY is for
>> audio books (could DAISY be used for Braille output?).
>>
>> Now that neatly leads me on to Braille and dotsplus. My personal
>> preference is for Braille, and this is particularly strong when working
>> with maths as you may want very fine control over the access you have to
>> the information (I find speech is far too uncontrollable for navigating
>> an equation). Now I can't advise you on Braille software as I live in
>> the UK and so use the British Braille code where as I guess you would
>> use Nemeth (if you read Braille). Actually my comment of whether you
>> know Braille is probably an important one, if you don't know a maths
>> Braille code it may be hard for you to learn it quickly and sometimes
>> getting someone who knows it and can teach it to the level you will need
>> could be hard.
>>
>> An alternative to standard Braille is the dotsplus system which instead
>> of sticking to the six dot Braille cell uses raised graphical
>> representations of the symbols. Also it differs from Braille as it lays
>> the maths out as it is for print (eg. a fraction is something over
>> something else with a horizontal line to separate the numerator and
>> denominator, superscripts are slightly raised, etc). Now this has the
>> advantage that it can be easier to learn (less symbols, they resemble
>> the print ones so a sighted person could help (Viewplus actually produce
>> an embosser which can do the dotsplus with the print alongside it), etc)
>> and the other advantage that you produce it by applying a font (there
>> should be no translation errors which you could get in Braille). I am
>> unsure how good it would be for reading dotsplus fast, but the accuracy
>> probably would outweigh that disadvantage. The other disadvantage is
>> that the hardware which can produce dotsplus is limited, only the tiger
>> printers from ViewPlus. This means you would be unable to read a
>> document from your computer using a Braille display in dotsplus, and you
>> can't write in dotsplus directly. This might be partly overcome if you
>> learn the basics of LaTeX or already know Braille.
>>
>> For getting a readable document from a paper source, then the infty
>> reader www.inftyproject.org may be of interest.
>>
>> I think all that remains is diagrams. There is either the swell paper
>> system (where a diagram is printed on special paper and then run through
>> a machine to heat it, and the black areas swell up when heated) or the
>> tiger printer (which might be a good option if you go with dotsplus for
>> equations). I found that raised line diagrams were enough for me,
>> sometimes I did need a little extra explanation from my tutor to fully
>> understand the diagram. Occasionally where dealing with complicated 3d
>> structures (my solid state physics modules in my degree were a good
>> example of where this occurred) we needed to create a model for me to
>> feel as the tactile diagram would be too complicated.
>>
>> There are devices which are meant to help with diagrams but I am unsure
>> of there value, particularly if you can get the human support to answer
>> questions you may have regarding diagrams. However some of the devices
>> may help where the human support cannot be provided (eg. distance
>> learning). One device is the IVEO from viewplus, it is a touch pad where
>> you place a tactile diagram on top of, and then software can tell you
>> more about what you touch (one big advantage is that you don't need
>> large labels on the actual diagram, but it can only tell you what has
>> been put in the computer IE. it cannot answer questions). I believe the
>> haptic device you mention is too replace a physical diagram, as you move
>> your hand while holding the device it will give you feedback on what you
>> would be passing over. Now I don't know about the specific one you
>> mention, but depending on the device it may be able to work in 3d or it
>> may only be 2d. I think some of these can be quite expensive and I don't
>> know how portable they would be (I can put a paper tactile diagram in a
>> folder and take it where I like, lectures, look at it on the train, etc).
>>
>> For you to produce diagrams, then there is the plastic film which you
>> use on a rubber mat and when you press down with a ball point pen what
>> you draw will rise up.
>>
>> I think that covers the basics, I said it could be a long message. Now
>> if you have questions about anything specific ask away (hopefully
>> specific questions will yield shorter answers).
>>
>> Michael Whapples
>> On 02/01/10 03:56, Matthew Cooper wrote:
>>> Hi!  I am a high school senior preparing for college.  Chances are
>>> that I will be attending Duke or Stanford for Mechanical Engineering.
>>> So, can anyone give me information on necessary software and hardware
>>> (I've heard of Mathtype, Mathematica, various audible graphing
>>> calculators, iFeel pixel software and Novint Falcon haptic device).
>>> What do these things really do and which ones should I have?  Thanks
>>> in advance!!     Matt
>>>
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>>
>>
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>
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