[Ncabs] Student Seminar Potential Guest

[Salisbury, Justin Mark]

Dear NCABS members,

   Please read this little article that I found on the main NFB website.  I think that this gentleman could be an excellent guest at our student seminar, especially since he works in Raleigh at that red school.  Everyone, please provide your thoughts about how he might best be able to contribute.

Report from the Research and Development Committee:

One of the longstanding interests of the NFB research and development committee has been the development of a refreshable Braille display that is considerably less costly than the Braille displays on the market today. The piezoelectric technology used to move the dots on today's Braille displays has been around since the mid 1970s with very little cost reduction or technological improvement. Just before the research and development committee meeting held on Wednesday, July 7, Curtis Chong, the committee’s chair, talked with Peichun Yang “Paul” Chang, PhD, a blind researcher at North Carolina State University, who is working on a project to use electroactive polymer technology to drive a multi-line refreshable Braille display.

Dr. Chang's story is interesting. In 1992 he came to the United States from China to study at North Carolina State University's materials science and engineering department. After five years of study he obtained his PhD in 1997. For seven months he performed post doctoral work in the campus microelectronics laboratory. In 1998 he lost his sight as the result of an accident. After he got out of the hospital, he spent a year receiving training in the alternative techniques of blindness--learning Braille, nonvisual access to the computer, and independent travel. During this period it became apparent to him that a refreshable Braille display could be a very useful tool for someone who is blind. He communicated with many people around the world in an effort to come up with a lower-cost Braille display. He even met with Deane Blazie, a pioneer in technology for the blind. In 2003 he attended an international conference on electroactive polymer actuators and devices in San Diego. At this conference Dr. Chang demonstrated the concept of a model Braille cell using a hydraulic latching mechanism in the EAP-In-Action (electroactive polymer in action) section of the conference. After a few years of trying to secure grant funding, in 2007 he and others at North Carolina State University secured a three-year field-initiated projects grant from NIDRR. Two years into the grant they had an experimental breakthrough that was published in a paper presented at the twelfth International Conference on Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices in San Diego. Dr. Chang told Curtis that in five years he expects to have a working prototype.

In layman's terms this is what Curtis understood from talking with Dr. Chang: if electroactive polymer technology can be used to drive refreshable Braille displays, the cost per cell should be reduced by a factor of ten. The piezoelectric reeds driving today's refreshable Braille displays have to be cut using a diamond saw. The plastic used in electroactive polymer technology can be cut using something as simple as a razor blade. The intriguing thing is that Dr. Chang is himself a user of refreshable Braille technology. He uses it every day and clearly understands the importance of readable Braille dots and fast response times with refreshable Braille. Here’s hoping that this is the breakthrough we have been hoping for.


Thank you!

Justin

Justin M. Salisbury
Undergraduate Student
The University Honors Program
East Carolina University
salisburyj08 at students.ecu.edu

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."    -Aristotle