Shapes and Braille

This project is made to respond to blind children's needs in their learning. The goal is to create objects which they can interact with through handling, so they can learn about that object and, at the same time, how it's written in Braille.

These objects are geometrical shapes, and they are destined to 3D printing. In these shapes, their names will be in one of their faces in Braille, so they can learn how to recognise those shapes, what are they called, how you spell those, and how it is written.

Step 1: Sketching

The first step is sketching, once we know what we want to design. We have to decide what, how, size and shape. In my case, I've decided to create different geometrical shapes, as we see in the picture above.

3 cathegories:

- Circle: 1 flat figure, 2 spheres (1 bigger than the other)

- Square: 1 flat square, 2 cubes (again, 1 bigger than the other)

- Triangle: 1 flat triangle, 2 piramids (once again, 1 bigger than the other, one of them with a sqaure base, and the other witha triangle base)

The different size are for this:

- The small one to handle it with just one hand (a child's hand) and understand how is the shape

- The big one to feel better the faces, edges, corners, inclination and curves

Step 2: Designing

Once we know what we want to desing, we make the design. I've used Autodesk Fusion 360 for that.

First, the shapes, and when they are volumes and not just simple sketches, the shape's names in Braille, using Extrude function and joining them.

In the pictures above we can see the standards used for that, and the results.

Step 3: Render and Ready to Print!

To see the final result, I've made a render of the designs, the ones we see above.

Using the 3D print option, we can prepare our files in STL format, so they are ready for our 3D printing!

If you want these files to use them to create those shapes for you, pleas contact me! and I will send them to you.