This week, I finished my sections for the design report. We reworked our design, so we talked through the pros and cons of the two designs before deciding on the one to focus on in the design report. They are both made with similar components, so we would be able to pivot to the backup design if necessary. We are a little behind with ordering materials, but will remedy that this week during class but sending in order forms. For storage of our device, I reached out to tech spark to get our group and assigned box. By the end of the week, I hope to have the CAD done and 3D print started.
Team Status Report for Oct 4
This week we presented our completed design presentation. We decided to move forward with the 3D printed/motorized version and will begin CADing. This route can be risky for making it strong enough to emboss and meet braille standards, but to mitigate this, we have a simpler back-up plan. This back-up plan is also accounted for in our budget. We are currently on schedule and our design hasn’t changed from last week. We worked on the design write-up and will continue doing so this week to complete it. Now that we are through the proposal and design, we are moving forward to ordering components and reaching out to disability resources to receive feedback.
Abby’s Status Report for Oct 4
This week, I finished work on the slides and worked on the script for our design presentation. I presented our design on Monday. We continued to work on the written proposal.
Abby’s Status Report for Sep 27
This week, I helped work on the slides and document for our design presentation. Since I am presenting this one, I also practiced it to make sure I had a good grasp on all aspects of it and was prepared for questions. I also worked on ways we could go about making the embosser, using inspiration from online open source projects. I believe using the existing handheld embosser might be easier, but because of the timing issue, I agree with moving forward with the pin method first.
Team Status Report for September 27th
This week, our team worked through our plan for what materials we were going to order and ones we could borrow. We looked into the Raspberry Pi AI HAT add-on to improve speed in our OCR processing, but decided we could move forward with regular Raspberry Pi for now and circle back if needed. For the embosser, we worked through two different ideas. The first is to take an existing handheld Braille embosser and use it as a base. Onto the base, we would add motors to make it automated. However, this comes at a time cost and after the TA meeting, we decided to move this to a back-up option. The plan we are moving forward with is a embosser we make. This will include three pins that emboss half a Braille character and a system for moving the label tape forward.
In addition to this planning, we worked through our design presentation. We will take the notes from our proposal presentation and apply them to the new presentation. We will additionally focus more on our mitigation plan.
Part A, written by Francesca Cain:
With respect to public health, safety or welfare, our project aims to improve the lived experience of the blind and visually impaired community. Most clearly in terms of safety, the ability to easily and quickly scan a flat label to create a braille label has applications in pharmaceutical safety. If a blind patient is unable to clearly see a medication label, and with many prescription bottles being the same standardized shape and size, this increases the likelihood of mistaking or potentially overdosing on a prescription medication. This can be life threatening. In terms of general welfare, this product improves living independency for those who are visually impaired, reducing need for a sighted partner or aid for assistance.
Part B, written by Abigail Gredell:
This project addresses a social gap of a lack of braille translation tools. Most devices require the help of a sighted person, and this device aims to provide independence to the user along with the base functionality. It supports greater inclusion in the house, at work, and in other communal spaces. It in general brings awareness of accessibility needs and helps people work thorugh social barriers.
Part C, written by Bella Woodard:
Our device addresses economic factors by making braille printing and labeling more accessible and affordable. Current commercial braille embossers are often prohibitively expensive, bulky, and limited to institutional use. This places a financial barrier on individuals in the blind and visually impaired community. Our design aim is to reduce production costs and provide a scalable solution that could be distributed at a fraction of the cost of existing embossers.
Abby’s Status Report for Sep 20
This week, I helped work on the slides and document for our proposal presentation. We additionally worked through some of the questions the TA’s had about our project. I found some example embossers on Amazon, we are thinking we can either directly automate one of these devices or use it was a model. During our second meeting with the TA’s, we brought up a size we should aim for and them encouraged us to stick with the handheld design as that is what adds the most uniqueness to our project. I additionally found more inspiration about how we are going to go about making the embosser, as we’ve seen buying one will be outside of our budget and not fall in the handheld category.