Braille Slate for Mathematics
Jan 2020—July 2020
About
During an initial visit to a school for children with visual impairments in Guwahati, I discovered that many high school children opted out of math education post grade 10.
On probing further, I discovered that they lacked the funds to procure the RBDs and tooling to enable them to pursue STEM further.
Work
The work initially began as an exploration to make RBDs more accessible, but we changed tracks quickly after realizing that the cost savings of a new system would still not solve all the issues faced by students.
I decided to focus on upgrading the Braille slate—a no–tech device that has high adoption amongst the VI community—to allow math to be written and read back effortlessly.
The final product was a no–tech, easy to use, comprehensive Braille slate that allows students to emboss and immediately read back long equations set in Nemeth code.
Development is ongoing.
Landscape Orientation
The landscape orientation allows more characters to be embossed per line, which is crucial for mathematical equations. A magnetic stencil that only covers the active cell for embossing, a taylor pin board for quick arithmetic and embossed line numbers are also present.
Two usage modes for the slate—writing and rudimentary graphing.
Stylus
The magnetic stencil allows for easy one handed operation, while also allowing content that was just embossed to be read back immediately.
There is also a linear ratchet that allows the stencil to be moved down the page easily, and debossed line numbers in braille for easy recall.
Slate hinges open to allow sheet to be inserted and removed.
