3D Printed Braille (Grade 1) Letter Blocks

Intro: 3D Printed Braille (Grade 1) Letter Blocks

Nothing really fancy, I created a set of 3D printed braille grade one block letters. These letter blocks are designed to embossed on paper, you can use a rubber roller to imprint these letters on paper. Each block fits in a single orientation so it the letters will always be in the correct orientation. There are respective english letters mark on each block.

Block Dimension: 10mm x 15mm x 5mm

How to make?

Pretty straight forward, download the zipped STL files and use a 3D printer to print these blocks. The zipped STL file contained braille letters from A to Z.

Comments

[traceyellaa]

Hello

I printed these out yesterday. I was very excited to start using them with my student however I noticed some mistakes. The c did not appear on the platform and the j was incorrect (it came out as a low h). J is dot 2-4-5. Can you please update it ?

[Granzeier]

"I cannot make instructions on operating a 3D printer because there are
hundreds of 3D printer brands in the market and they operate
differently."

Boy that is for sure. I am thinking of your thought processes in coming up with these. What prompted you (do you have a blind kid, a blind friend, whatever) to come up with these? How did you go about designing these? What tools did you use? Maybe going through the steps which you took, and recording them in this 'ible would be a good idea (remember, enquiring minds want to know - how could we take the same steps that you took to design our own product.) BTW, the reason that I am going on about this is because, as a tech-oriented entrepreneur, I am very interested in this kind of stuff - thanks for humoring me about this.

Also, if I could make another suggestion - how about modifying the design files to make white (or another light color) visible letters right on the top (where the Braille letters are) of the blocks. The letters that you have on the sides are a bit difficult to see (or are they really clear, just not in the photos?) The letters will then be more visible to the sighted kids - thinking about main-streaming the blind kids a bit more.

[danleow]

Well! I don't know anyone who is blind but I do have lots of admiration and respect for blind people and I think we should do our best to contribute in some way to help them and educate people.

I use 3D modelling software to design these files. In fact if you know any 3D modelling software or how to use a CAD, you could easily design these blocks or modify the files. Besides learning 3D modelling software can be quite a steep learning curve if you have no experience in 3D. The color of the block does not depend on the design files, it depends on the filament color that you feed into the 3D printer. Currently, I only have black because I have used up all the other colors to print other stuffs.

If I have time I will move the letters on top, at the moment is quite tedious to move to the top because there isn't enough space for the letters so I have to resize the block to make spaces. The visibility is poor because I set printing at low resolution (for fast print for prototyping) but if you have a reasonably good printer, you can print the letters quite clearly. The reason I kept the letters at the side simply because I do not want the feel of touching the braille distracted by the letters on the same surface.

[Granzeier]

Nice (actually great) idea, but you should give a bit more information about how you made these. That will turn this into a real Instructable.

Also, you say: "There are respective english letters mark on each block." I did not see them. How about adding pics that show them, or if I read that wrong, how about adding letters for "sighted" people - that way the blind kids could use these blocks for playing with kids who do not read Braille.

[danleow]

Thanks for pointing that out and I have made it clearer in my instructable. Actually there are english letters mark (on the side) on each block but the original pictures didn't really show so I added another picture to make it clearer. To make these is pretty straight forward, just download the zipped STL files and print it using a 3D printer. Unfortunately I cannot make instructions on operating a 3D printer because there are hundreds of 3D printer brands in the market and they operate differently.