A group of MIT engineering students built a device that will allow people with low or no vision to read everything from textbooks to menus by converting words into Braille on a display roughly the size of a candy bar. It is exciting to see accessibility become a focus point of a Hackathon at the world’s best engineering school.
The group known as Team Tactile, are now among four groups of innovators accepted into the new Microsoft #MakeWhatsNext Patent Program, giving them the chance to get the legal help they need to navigate the complicated and often expensive process of obtaining a patent.
The engineering students behind Tactile hope their device will allow people living with low or no vision to read everything from textbooks to menus, all in real time, by converting the words into Braille that appears on a refreshable handheld display.
In the wee hours of that morning in February, they were awarded a first-place trophy for their invention: a device that could turn printed words into Braille. It was a moment that left them even more energized to create something that could help blind people around the globe — and to cement their place in the growing subset of the world’s inventors who are women.
Bonnie Wang, an engineering and materials science major, recalls it as “one of the most hectic 15 hours of my life, ever.”