Why Paperless Erasable Braille Slate is important to all of us:

As per World Health Organization (WHO), we have 285 million visually impaired people worldwide, out of those 19 million are children below the age of 15 .

As per a report developed by UNESCO and survey done by the UN as an example In India, percentage of kids with disabilities still out of school: UN. This matter is not only a serious issue in India but also act as a challenging problem all over the world. To provide a basic education in primary schools of physically disabled children we propose this learning tool so that they can be incorporated in mainstream society.

Our product target is to support these blind children to provide education to them. They have special schools and use special language (such as Braille ) for their education. During initial stage of learning braille language they adopt a Braille slate , thick paper , sharp stylus to make impressions on Paper. With the advancement in technology there has been manifold progress in all the sectors. Similarly, the invention of Traditional Braille Slate leads to a revolution for the people who are visually impaired. But just like two sides of the same coin, everything has its pros and cons. Expressing themselves became easier, but the harm that it does to the sensitive finger tips cannot be ignored . Moreover, there is massive wastage of resources like thick paper , which directly or indirectly leads to cutting of trees . Hence, we have come up with a technology where the above mentioned disadvantages of the Braille Slate will be covered up. To save the ecosystem, to provide better and quality education we propose Paperless Erasable Magnetic Braille Slate product . It doesn’t depend on any paper usage, it can even be reused at any place.

Our Solution:

The presented invention relates to an innovative teaching aid for blind - the Paperless Erasable Magnetic Braille Slate . It is an apparatus that allows the teaching structure using word and phones formation by using cells. The Braille writing, locating and entering its formation is done using magnetic stylus on the 6 hole provided on the slate.  Blind people can easily use stylus as shown in Figure 1 to attract the magnets (Magnet on stylus and on slate will be of different pole or other material) so that the magnets come out from the holes as shown in Figure 2 and make a character of Braille language.

Figure1: Magnetic Stylus

Figure2: Plunger of a cell

We will set a function in Braille slate so that a single push can deject all the magnets into the holes at a same time. Thus, the magnetic braille slate can be reset and reused for writing again as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Overview of the proposed Paperless Erasable Magnetic Braille Slate

Team Members:

The team involves four inventors namely: Dr. Amandeep Singh Oberoi, Er. Virender Kadyan, Dr. Amitoj singh and Mr. Vinay Kukreja. A patent have been filed based upon the proposed project bearing Patent Filing No: 201611033447. The team apply continuous efforts to help needy people by utilizing their technical skill and their education experience for improving the education system of blind children.

Dr. Oberoi is presently Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Chitkara University Punjab, India. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in mechanical engineering from the Punjab Technical University in India and his PhD. in mechanical and manufacturing engineering from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University in Melbourne, Australia. While at RMIT University, from 2012-2016 he received a fee exemption grant under the Commonwealth Government Research Trainee Scheme and PhD top-up scholarship of $20K from Victorian Brown Coal Innovation Australia. His research focus includes solid-state hydrogen storage, proton electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), materials for energy storage, heat exchangers and heat sinks. He has published around 30 papers in various journals and conference proceedings.

Dr. Virender Kadyan is Assistant Professor in the department of Chitkara University Research and Innovation Network, Chitkara University, Punjab. He leads the Speech and Multimodal Laboratory on Sign language, Speech Signal Processing and Natural Language Processing. He is a Co-Principal investigator on IEEE  Project for development of Punjabi ASR system.  His research interest includes Sign Language, speech analysis, recognition, synthesis, NLP and pattern matching.

Dr. Amitoj Singh is Assistant Professor at MRSPTU Bathinda. He done his PhD from Punjabi University Patiala India in Software Engineering.  His research interests include Braille Language, Speech recognition and Software requirement analysis.

Vinay Kukreja is an Associate Professor at Chitkara University, Punjab India and has experience of software prototyping and requirement analysis.

Requirement and Importance of Building this Product:

• We are trying to develop a novel Braille Slate for Blind people to provide better education and Teaching Aid.
• Blind Children education is equally important as the rest of society and Braille slate being their primary education tool needs to be upgraded with the improved technology.
• Our product will help 19 million children below the age of 15 globally.
• For charity purpose and serving the needy blind society.

If we reach our minimum target (£125):

We will develop a single prototype unit of our project with minimum funding assistance.

We will be able to develop five test units and will supply them to the Blind School, Patiala, India for testing and feedback.

If we get a huge contribution from donors for our novel product:

We can develop ten or more units, which may reduce the production cost of each unit and allow us to give more testing units to the school. We can then carry out refinements based upon feedback of Blind School in Patiala and supply the units to support the safe education of blind children.

The project progress and updates will be provided Bi-annually to the funders through email.

ESTIMATED BUDGET (1 piece initial start-up cost)

Material Cost: £70

Machining Cost: £30

Finishing Cost: £25

Venue hire (four week): £200

Travel: £250

Printing costs: £50

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Reward:

Whatever amount you donate us we contribute it through this product to blind school at our place and reward you with some small token of the symbol of respect from our side.