As we are approaching the start of the designing phase of our project, we realized there are some significant risks to consider. To begin with, the minuscule gap between dots in a braille might pose some difficulties in designing the grid with the balls and require extremely high precisions when it comes to actuating them into readable brailles. As a counter measure we have a plan B being planned currently that deals with 3D printing the grid instead of looking for pre-existing hardware components.
In terms of the software aspect, it is to be noted that braille dictionary data requires a lot of memory due to the fact that the braille patterns are stored in matrix like data structure. Thus, we are planning to do the translation on the web application and then to transfer only the necessary data into the braille pad and find ways to store the data in binary structure instead of a matrix with 1’s representing the dots.
As we have not completely finalized on the components needed for the product, it is inevitable that we are prone to changes to the design. By next week we are to be fully decided on which hardware components to order as well as an analysis on the cost and scale of the order. Currently we have begun to list all the possible components that could be viable. We are going to have a finalized list by early next week and make orders by the end.
This is the initial schedule that we have proposed so far