The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Designers: Seong-Hee Yoon, Lina Carballo, Quetrell Heyward
Client Coordinators: Diane Brauner, COMS

INTRODUCTION

Braille literacy enables people with visual impairments to read and write. Mastering Braille is especially challenging for children because memorizing the alphabet requires spatial perception, an acute sense of touch, and learning many dot combinations. While there are several fun and stimulating games that teach letters and phonics to children with vision, there are no comparable toys that teach Braille to children with visual impairments. Teachers usually have plastic sheets with Braille textures and practice reading them with their students. Although teachers are very helpful in engaging their students, these children do not have a fun, engaging way to work on Braille literacy outside of their school.

We developed a portable and washable electronic device that will help children with visual impairments to learn Braille and phonics. This device features the textures of the full Braille alphabet and a melodic description of each character. AlphaBraille provides audio and tactile feedback to provide a fun and engaging environment in which young students can learn. Parents and teachers can easily set the volume and replace the batteries.

Figure 1: The Alphabraile base unit and a puzzle piece for the letter “b”. When the user fits this piece in the matching black cutout on the base, the device plays a song about the letter B.

STATEMENT OF IMPACT

We worked with Diane Brauner, an Orientation and Mobility Therapist, who provided feedback on our design from a clinical perspective. She commented that, “the kids can easily get [the puzzle pieces] in. The sounds are terrific. The tune is so catchy, and the kids are going to be singing it, which is great because they are going to be learning the dot numbers for the Braille letters. I think it’s terrific. I think you guys did a phenomenal job. It’s going to really help our kids learn Braille in a fun way.”

TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION

Alphabraille consists of a base unit, and twenty-six semicircular puzzle pieces, each encoded with a letter written in Braille dots on the top face. To play with the device, the user selects a puzzle piece and pushes it into a matching cutout in the top of the Alphabraille base. This prompts AlphaBraille to play a song about that letter. The song includes the letter’s name, phonics, dot numbers, a sample word, and a sound that represents the word. For example, figure 1 shows the puzzle piece for the letter “B”. When the user fits this piece in the matching black cutout on the base, the device plays a song to the tune of “Old Macdonald”: B says “buh”, bird starts with B, <chirp>, <chirp>, <chirp>. B says “buh”, B says “buh”, B is dots 1 and 2.

Next, the user removes the puzzle piece and can insert another puzzle piece into the base. Kids can repeat this process multiple times to become familiar with the alphabet or to test their knowledge while having fun in the process.

The puzzle pieces were designed and fabricated using computer software and a 3-D printer. As mentioned above, each piece contains a Braille configuration on its top surface that represents a certain letter of the alphabet. The bottom of each piece contains a unique set of holes to identify the piece to the base unit. This is accomplished by activating a unique combination of the push-buttons inside the cutout of the base unit. For example, if the user inserts puzzle piece “G” then switches #1, 2, and 3 will be activated; meanwhile, if the user inserts puzzle piece “S” then switches #1, 2, and 5 will be activated.

A microcontroller detects the push-button combinations and plays the appropriate sound files. It controls the Rogue Robotics µMP3 Player, which stores and plays one of the twenty-six MP3 files corresponding to the letters of the alphabet. For instance, if the microcontroller receives signals from the puzzle piece “B,” it sends an electronic message to the µMP3 Player to play the “B” song. The user can rotate a potentiometer to provide volume control. After the amplifier magnifies the output of the µMP3 Player, a mini-speaker transmits it to the user.

The total cost of this device is $360. This includes the cost of the plastic used in the 3-D printer to make the puzzle pieces.

Figure 2: Client using the Alphabraille Device