STEM II

Course Description

The assistive Technology project, or the AT project for short, is a three-month group project where students go through the engineering design process in groups of four or five to develop a device to fit a certain need. Throughout the course of the project, students fulfill different roles to simulate a real-life engineering workplace. I, CIO, was in a group with Megan Ashun, CEO, Rishab Nair, CTO, and Edward Goodwin, CMO. We worked together to develop an automatic digital text-to-braille display. Feel free to look at our problem, solution, and more details about our app further below.

Design Approach

Our group had several initial approaches to designing a device to fit this need. We began by developing three design concepts before moving on with our preferred design concept and developing it into a proof of concept featuring a rotational Braille wheel inside of a cardboard Braille Display. After further development and several redesigns, our final prototype features a movable braille slider inside the display.

Design I

The first design concept features an initial 2”x11”x2” body (with the final design planned to be the size of a Braille page of 11.5”x11”x2”) with a 120-character display, presented in three different lines, each containing 40 characters. There are plans to increase both the display size and dimensions after a working model is achieved. The functional aspect of the design comprises a wheel that will set half of a Braille cell. The wheel will offer eight different configurations, each consisting of a 1 x 3 set of bump-divet combinations that align with every possible Braille configuration. Attached to a conveyor belt, the wheel will move along all 80 semi-Braille cells. It will rotate to the desired semi-Braille configuration, then rise to push iron rods into the perforations of the display above, which contains embedded electromagnetic rods to hold them in place. The wheel proceeds to the next character until all characters are set. A conveyor belt then shifts down to the next line until the entire device translates into Braille. Upon completing reading, users can click a button to demagnetize the electromagnet holding the pins up, resetting the page to allow for the translation of the next one. The benefits of the proposed design include minimizing the number of required motors and providing a swiftly acting method of pin placement. However, the intricacies of the wheel alignment may pose challenges. Potential future additions involve incorporating more wheels in the line to increase the number of characters set at a time and adding more lines to display additional characters simultaneously.

Design II

Similar to the first design concept, the second design concept features an initial 2”x11”x2” body (with the final design planned to be the size of a Braille page of 11.5”x11”x2”) with a 120-character display, initially presented in three different lines, each containing 40 characters. The functional aspect of the design comprises a slider that sets half of a Braille cell. The slider includes a series of bumps allowing for all eight configurations of a half-Braille cell to be set. It is connected to another conveyor belt that moves along all 80 semi-Braille cells. Once the slider reaches the desired configuration, matching the shape of the half-Braille cell, it is pushed up, setting the three pins into electromagnets running across the lines. Then, a conveyor belt moves it to the next half-Braille cell, continuing until the whole line of Braille is completed. Subsequently, a second conveyor belt moves the system down to the next line. Upon completing reading, users can click a button to demagnetize the electromagnetic surface, resetting the page for translation of the next one. The benefits of the design lie in its simplicity, potentially making it easier to create. However, drawbacks include numerous moving parts that may become misaligned and greater size needed for the design. Future additions include adding more lines of text and more motors with Braille setters to expedite the process.

Design III

The body of the third design concept is the same as concepts one and two. There will be three different wheels with various numbers of offset bumps that will be all connected to a motor. Each of these wheels will have a specific number of bumps that are the lowest primes number 2, 3, 5, or one of their multiples. Having these bumps cycle on every 2nd, 3rd, or 5th of a rotation will allow for all 8 configurations to be set into the Braille cell within at most 30 steps of the motor. The set of wheels will be attached to another conveyor belt that moves the wheel along all 80 of the semi-Braille cells. Once the belt has reached the configuration that matches the desired shape of the half-Braille cell, it will be pushed up, setting the three pins into a set of electromagnets running across the lines. Then the second conveyor belt will move the wheel system to the next half-Braille cell. The process will continue until the whole line of Braille is completed. After that, a third conveyor will move the system down to the next line. When the reader is done reading the page, they will click a button that demagnetizes the pins, resetting the page and allowing for the next page to be translated. The benefits of the design include ease of creation with simple wheels instead of more complex moving pieces. However, some negatives of the design include that it would be slower than other designs as well as being potentially more easily broken. Potential additions in the future include adding more lines of text as well as adding more motors with Braille setters to speed up the process.

Proof of Concept

The first physical design was a cardboard container and three vertically adjustable rods acting as the braille display, featuring a 3D-printed “Braille wheel”, that could be rotated to display any of the eight combinations of three spaces in a Braille cell at the top of the wheel. When pushed upwards, the spaces in the Braille cells designated as “bumps” given the wheel’s positioning would be pushed up, while the spaces designated as vacant spaces would remain unchanged, resulting in a final displayed combination comprising a Braille character.

Prototype

The final prototype design is a movable braille slider held within a box-like container. The design features six rod-like modules held in place so that their horizontal movement is restricted but their vertical movement is not. The rods are inside six holes in the surface, such that when a rod is sticking up, it acts as a “bump” in a standard braille cell, and when the rod is down, it acts as a vacant space. Inside the device, two rectangular boxes connected to gears can slide horizontally within the container, each with a track of the same width as the rods so that the rods can be moved up and down along the track.