Lego may be a children ’s plaything , but folks across the globe are continually establish us that it can be much more than that . mass have used the brightly colourise bricks to construct 3D printer , cloning political machine , cars and even houses . But that ’s not all , as it turns out that a Lego kit serve one budding young entrepreneur begin his challenging enterprise to aid dim people across the macrocosm to read .
Last year , when he was just 12 - year - former , Shubham Banerjee from California decided to build his ownlow - cost machine to publish Braille , a touch - free-base penning system for the blind and visually impaired , after learning that the devices be upwards of $ 2,000 . He believed that there must be a way to make them cheesy so that the technology could become more accessible , especially to those in develop nation . So , for a schooltime scientific discipline fair project , the 7th - grader resolve to see what he could do withLego ’s Mindstorms EV3 robotics kit .
Using the$350 kitand a few supplies from a home renovations store , Banerjee superintend to construct a printer based on an existing design and then modify it with new software program and hardware enhancement . Using an connected keypad , mortal could type in text which was then converted into Braille by the “ Braigo ” auto . A thumbtack then plug the raised protuberance into a roller of theme . The auto was fairly dumb to operate , but it was enough to demonstrate that the concept works .
The prototype went on towin several awardsalongside support from the blind biotic community , so Banerjee resolve to go one dance step further and part his own company , Braigo Labs , with the ultimate goal of develop an low-priced , lightweight desktop Braille pressman . With the help of a $ 35,000 cash injection from his daddy , Banerjee , aged 13 , grapple to construct an improved variation of his original Lego - ground model using a commercially available desktop printer and an Intel computer chip . Unlike the Braigo v1.0 , this upgraded 2.0 manikin is capable of translating electronic text edition into Braille .
US technical school firm Intel were so impressed with his invention that they decided to indue an undisclosed nub of money into Banerjee ’s inauguration , which was rumour to be a few hundred thousand dollars . The cash will be used to charter applied scientist to aid design an low-priced pressman that will take into account blind or visually impaired users to publish out a mixed bag of texts , include house label and short meter reading material , in Braille . Braigo Labs is hopeful that a prototype will be ready for testing this summer , and if it ’s a achiever , it will go on the marketplace towards the remnant of the yr .
[ ViaABC News , CNETandBBC News ]
