Father Jacob Lacourse, whose daughter Rebecca was born with Usher Syndrome has developed a new Arduino powered device specifically designed to help children learn Braille and aptly named BecDot.
Watch the demonstration video below to learn more about the braille teaching tool which senses when a plastic object such as a letter block or plastic animal is placed on the NFC reader.
The BecDot is an educational tool/toy that will be used to introduce braille at an early age to children that are visually impaired or who have been diagnosed with conditions that will eventually cause blindness or for children who are already blind. The device incorporates 4 braille cells that react to objects with pre-programmed NFC tags attached to them. It currently uses an Arduino Uno (what is an arduino) to drive the individual dots.
The biggest challenge with the design was to create a device that was very low cost. I studied some of the Braille readers on the market and found that these devices are very complex and as a result make them very expensive for the consumer. This is why not many devices are designed for children and most of the focus is on the older Braille reader, I mean who wants to give a 3 year old a $1000+ device. This is where after some trial and a lot of pain I came up with a design which could enable me to bring the device to market for under $100, enabling families, care givers, and educators the ability to afford the device.
To learn more about the inspiration behind BecDot Jump over to the Memories For Rebecca website by following the link below.