“Braigo”- a low-cost Braille printer invented by Indian-origin boy Shubham Banerjee

March 3, 2014

The Indian-origin, Master Shubham Banerjee (12) invented Braigo, a low-cost Braille printer by using toy construction Lego pieces in USA.
About Braigo, a low-cost Braille printer

A mash-up of Braille and LEGO.
Cost: $350.
Designed from the Lego Mindstorms EV3 set.
Modified a robot model to make a functional printer at a fraction of the cost of other machines in the market. (Basic model Braille printers retail for about $2,000 online).
Programmed to produce the letters :A to Z” in Braille. It takes about seven seconds to print each letter.
Users can type in letters, and the Braigo’s needle will hammer out the translated message in raised dots on paper.
Future Plan: To programme Braigo to print the numbers one to 10.

What is Braille printer?
Braille printers, also known as embossers, are used to make copies of electronic documents on paper in a format that is readable by blind people.

Working: Receives data from computer devices and embosses that information in Braille onto paper through the use of solenoids that control embossing pins. Typically print on heavyweight paper and use up more pages for the same amount of information than pages printed on a regular printer.
Slower and noisier.
Inter-point printers are Braille printers that emboss Braille on both sides of a page.

Note: LEGO Mindstorms EV3 is a remarkably powerful and functional robotics kit people of any age can use to build some impressive and complicated projects.

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