This article has an unclear citation style. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of. ( December 2014) Braigo ( Brai-lle +Le- go) is a printer design.
![Lego Lego](/uploads/1/2/5/5/125574188/835711900.jpg)
LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3, a software developed by The LEGO Group, often gets into your computer via Webpage browse or some freeware’s installation. To safely remove the program, the wrong way is to locate its folder, right-click it and select “Delete”, while quite a number of people are still doing this. Haste makes waste.
Braigo version 1.0 uses a, which includes a microprocessor with assorted components such as,. Braigo v1.0 was designed by 13-year-old Shubham Banerjee in January 2014, as an entry in 7th grade school science fair project. The model was based on the PLOTT3R, a bonus model released with the EV3 kit and originally designed by Ralph Hempel. The cost was said to be about 350 or 250 for the Lego Mindstorms EV3 kit and some extra commonly used hardware whereas a conventional Braille printer retails starting from about US$1,900. In August 2014, a new company called Braigo Labs Inc. Was formed with an office in. Since Shubham Bannerjee is a minor, his mother Malini is listed as the President of the company and the law firm Inventus Law acting as advisor.
On September 9, 2014, at the Developers Forum (IDF 2014), Banerjee demonstrated 'Braigo v2.0'. As of at least February 2018 the product has still not been released and there have been no official announcements since 2014.
Braigo Braille Print Head In Banerjee's own words, taken from the abstract submitted at Synopsys Science Fair: “ The challenges with assistive technologies currently available are either too expensive or difficult to obtain for normal people without government or non-profit sponsorships. According to WHO reports, there are estimated 285 million visually impaired people worldwide and 90% of them live in developing countries. At this moment the cost of a braille printer is more than $2000 for a basic version. Thus many millions of people across the world have limited access. If we could reduce the cost to below $500, we could already reduce the cost by 75%. To give access to easily assemble and build a braille printer for the masses, the basic ability of DO-IT-YOURSELF (D-I-Y) is key. The kit should be readily available at stores or procured online from reputable websites to make the process easy for adoption.
Most printers operate in X (to move the print head) -Y (to push the paper) – Z (to print or not to print) co-ordinates. The printer has to be compact and self-explanatory.
Engineering as a discipline is the application of scientific, economic, social, and practical knowledge in order to design, build, maintain, and improve structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes. In this experiment, I relied on my love of LEGO and readily available Mindstorms EV3 robotics kit to build a D-I-Y Braille printer and program the device to print in Braille. I worked with a constraint that all parts should be from one kit and maybe some low cost readily available add-ons to make such a printer. After studying the Braille language; I understood that a visually impaired individual feels through his/her fingers the bumps on a paper through a combination of 6 dots.
If we could make a printer that prints (by making holes in a paper) as a mirror image of the letter and when flipping the page we should be able to translate letters into BRAILLE. I used rapid prototyping concepts where I tried to build models and programing it to see if I am able to get the desired results. I had to build and break 7 different models before settling on a final one that was able to print the six dots in a desired sequence according to the Braille standards. After which, I programmed the letters A-Z. I used a normal calculator paper to provide the proof of concept. I have validated my version 1.0 of BRAIGO and potential small updates in software necessary to perfect for the next version 2.0 at Santa Clara Valley Blind Center based in San Jose and also with Hoby Wedler at his laboratory in UC Davis. I would say that the first prototype of the proof of concept has been successful and me providing the building instructions and software as open source will provide a low cost alternative solution to the visually impaired community.
I achieved a 82% reduction in cost and have been overwlemed by the encouraging feedback from both the sighted and the blind equally! ” Braigo v1.0 made Open Source As announced in a and other interviews, Banerjee has decided to give away the design and software for free. He said on an program 'I think I'm doing something that could actually help people,'.
He has uploaded building instruction on his channel, and also uploaded the software project file.ev3 on the community page. He said that 'I think Braigo making the news will rejuvenate others and the beneficiary will be the visually impaired individuals. All good for humankind.' Detailed download and build information is available on-line and detailed directions on how to build Braigo were published in.
Braigo v2.0. Banerjee on stage with Mike Bell, Intel Corporate VP & GM - New Devices Group, at the keynote in IDF14 showing Braigo v2.0 On September 9, 2014, at the (IDF 2014) Mega Session: The Next Revolution in Computing: Edison, Wearables, and New Devices with Intel VP and GM, Mike Bell, Banerjee demonstrated Braigo 2.0. Braigo 2.0 promises to be the world's first, relatively inexpensive, silent, IOT enabled, light weight, consumer oriented, braille printer or embosser. Braigo 2.0 reportedly contains new patent pending technology in addition to 's paired with a development board.
After Braigo v1.0, the natural progression for Banerjee, after feedback from the visually impaired community, was to make a real consumer version that could eventually be bought off-the-shelf. He said: “ What I did with Lego in February of 2014 has me convinced that I’m onto something here. I want to bring a Braille printer to market that’s at an affordable price point. To do that I needed something small and powerful to drive the system.
Intel Edison is a great fit for that. I’m so passionate about solving this problem that I spent my summer building what you see here. I got membership at the in San Jose to learn design tools, worked with other individuals to get 3D printed mechanical parts and also machinist to design new braille heads and assembly'. 'Intel's new chip Edison was the perfect choice for being connected to the cloud/internet and at the same time reduces the BOM price by not using separate components/drivers.
It is less power hungry and has the future possibilities of using batteries for using in remote places of the world. The design uses new (patent pending) technology and also using Edison opens up the possibility to potentially use the same mechanism for other assistive technology products, like a refreshable reader and a display. The ability to use the backend cloud for software upgrades (without requiring any user interface) can make it much easier for a visually impaired person to install drivers or programs. The capabilities of Edison enabled me to do a whole set of use cases I haven’t previously thought about. For example, when we wake up in the morning we look at our smartphone or tablet to see the headline news. With Edison, we’ve set it up so the CNN headlines are printed off automatically every morning.'