The Team
Text2Touch is currently being worked on by three senior Computer Science students at Calvin University.
| Kenny Howes | Emma Wang | Ebun Aluko |
|---|---|---|
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| I really enjoy working on embedded systems and like to do woodworking in my free time. | I sometimes enjoy working on embedded systems and I play piano. | I have a growing passion for Cloud Computing and Security, and in my free time, you will probably find me studying for certification exams in these areas. |
The Vision
There are only around five Braille printers in the entire United States. The Text2Touch teams believes that these pieces of hardware should be much more available, and the first step towards that goal is to have an affordable way to create Braille printers.
History
The original mechanical design of the printer was completed on by a previous team of engineering students at Calvin University. While mechanically sound, the printer could only be interfaced through a direct UART over USB connection. The project lacked interfaces by which the non-technical blind caretaker audience could utilize the device, and the project was unable to be put to good purpose.
That team’s final report can be found here.
Current Work
The current team is a group of Computer Science students with various backgrounds in embedded systems and electrical engineering, who are working on adding the interfaces originally not present. This is being accomplished by attaching a Raspberry Pi to the machine to, at its core, add TCP/IP networking stack to the printer, which opens up many more user-friendly communication options. The plan can be explored further in this post.
The code for the project can be found on this GitHub organization.