[nfb-talk] Open Source Braille Display -- IndieGoGo

Steve Jacobson steve.jacobson at visi.com
Sun Jan 1 07:34:26 UTC 2012


The trouble is, one can't just say it will work and it will be cheap, one has to figure out how to actually do it and that's 
where the challenge is.  

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

On Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:55:35 -0500, Ashley Bramlett wrote:

>good idea; braille displays are not affordable for the average blind person, 
>even if they are working.

>-----Original Message----- 
>From: David Andrews
>Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2011 3:03 PM
>To: david.andrews at nfbnet.org
>Subject: [nfb-talk] Open Source Braille Display -- IndieGoGo

>Subject: Open Source Braille Display -- IndieGoGo

>http://www.indiegogo.com/Open-Source-Braille-Display

>The Story

>This project started earlier this year when I
>read a local author's book of life as a Blind
>person. After contacting him, I decided I could best help by
>designing a simple device to make low-cost
>Braille display from a computer possible.

>So Will It Change the World?

>I hope so - or I wouldn't be working on it!

>Braille is to the Blind as the written word is to
>us sighted folk - and so Braille literacy is
>vitally important. Yet according to Wikipedia, while in 1960
>half of blind American schoolchildren could read
>Braille, in 2007, that number had dropped to one
>in ten. To improve literacy, we need to make available
>more ways to access and learn Braille - and an
>important one is a tool to allow the Blind to
>read the vast amounts of information on the Internet.

>For many years, Braille readers have done just
>that. A Braille reader takes computer text and
>turns it into tactile impressions of Braille characters for
>the blind to 'read'. However, these devices are
>expensive - thousands of dollars - and so few can
>afford them. The goal of this project is to make an Open
>Source/Open Hardware Braille reader: simpler,
>easy to build, well documented, and inexpensive,
>so people anywhere can make it themselves (or get it made
>locally).

>But there's a second goal: to get people doing
>more. This design is meant to be simple and cheap
>to build. My hope is other, smarter people will step in
>and build better, faster, and more powerful
>devices. But nobody is doing it now, and so
>someone has to start the ball rolling.

>With your help, this will be that ball...

>What You Can Do

>The goal is to get from the current first
>prototype to a finished design for a 40-character
>Braille display, complete with software, and all the details
>people need to build it, placed online. To that
>end, here's some of the things needed:
>list of 4 items
>G€¢ Small CNC machine (build or buy), to do faster
>turnaround of prototype parts.
>G€¢ Purchase a selection of stepper motors and
>driver boards, to test different
>price/performance ratios for the Braille display design.
>G€¢ Get a low-cost netbook to prototype the exact
>software to run a device (netbook rather than a
>full computer so as to test the device in the most likely
>'real world' situation).
>G€¢ Materials! Prototypes use up a lot of material,
>as a part can get tweaked many times, each time requiring a new piece cut 
>out.
>list end

>Make no mistake - the project IS going ahead,
>whether a little or a lot of money comes in - the
>difference is just the speed things happen! So when this
>project is out there making the difference I hope
>it will, ask yourself how good it will feel to
>say 'I helped with that' - and please contribute!

>Any level is appreciated, and there's some 'thank
>yous' listed on the right side of this page to show appreciate for your aid.

>Progress will be discussed on my blog,
>http://UtopiaMechanicus.com,
>and designs will be made available there as they
>are finished. All code and design will also be
>made available for download, allowing people to make or
>modify these products.

>What (Else) You Can Do

>Tell the world - the more people that know of
>this project, the greater impact we can make.
>Blog about it, tweet away, link to it, talk about it at work.
>And please share this information with everyone and anyone.

>Thank You.


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