BRAIGO: braille printer made from Lego set

Palinurus

Palinurus

The Living Force
12 year old develops a low cost Braille printer using Lego - names it BRAIGO - published January 24, 2014.

BRAIGO - a Braille Printer using Lego. According to WHO reports, there are estimated 285 million visually impaired people worldwide and 90% of which lives in developing countries. At this moment the cost of a brail printer is more than $2000 for a basic version, thus for many millions of people across the world have limited access. This project uses the Lego Mindstorms EV3 kit costing $349 and some add-ons from Home-depot costing another $5 to prove that its feasible to make a brail printer for education purposes and schools that's much cheaper. The project uses the base reference model known as Banner Print3r and was redesigned with totally new software to print letters A-Z. The project is named as BRAIGO v1.0 in short for Brail with LEGO. There are endless possibilities to add enhancements in software to make BRAIGO do a lot more. The student wishes to make this project open source, with the design and software readily available for public consumption free of charge. Thus giving a new tool in the hands of blind institutions or even parents with visually impaired children to use this printer at a 80% savings from commercially available products out there in the market.

Developed by Shubham Banerjee, a 7th grade student from Santa Clara, California. In this demo he takes help from his little sister Anoushka.
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_https://plus.google.com/111846984926437553504/about
_https://www.facebook.com/BraigoPrinter


 
Found a major update for this story.

Source: _http://www.businessinsider.com/shubham-banerjee-braigo-labs-2014-11 (hyperlinks and seven photographs omitted)

This 13-Year-Old Is So Impressive, Intel Is Investing Hundreds Of Thousands In His Startup

Eugene Kim Nov. 9, 2014, 10:04 AM

braigo-labs-ceo-shubham-banerjee.jpg

Braigo Labs CEO Shubham Banerjee.

Shubham Banerjee, the 13-year old CEO of the Braille printer-maker Braigo Labs, had no idea what Braille was until last year.

It was only when he came across a fundraising flyer for the visually impaired that he started to wonder how blind people read. So, like any other seventh grader would do, he asked his parents. His father’s response: Go Google it.

As Banerjee searched the web, he discovered the high cost of Braille printers, which usually cost upward of $2,000. He also learned more about Braille, the tactile writing system used by the visually impaired.

"When I found out the cost of a Braille printer, I was shocked," Banerjee told Business Insider. "I just wanted to help the visually impaired. I had a Lego Robotics kit, so I asked, 'Why not just try that?'"

Built out of Lego’s Mindstorms EV3 blocks and little pieces from Home Depot (Braigo stands for Braille and Lego), Braigo Lab's printer turned out to function quite well. It earned Banerjee a lot of recognition, too, including The Tech Awards 2014 and an invitation to the White House Maker Faire, an event that awards student entrepreneurs and innovators.

But most importantly, Banerjee believes it could solve a decades-long problem that has been holding back so many visually impaired people around the world: the high cost of Braille printers.

Banerjee says his printer could significantly cut down the price of Braille printers, to less than $500. According to his website, there are 285 million visually impaired people worldwide, and 90% of them live in developing countries. It is not easy to drop a couple grand on a printer, even by a developed country’s standards.

"I want to tell (big company manufacturers) to stop taking advantage of blind people," he says.

Impressed by his product and vision, Intel came calling last September and told him it would invest in his company. And last week, the investment was made official at the Intel Capital Global Summit, when Braigo Labs was mentioned as one of the 16 tech startups Intel was investing in this year. Although the exact amount of the investment was not disclosed, it is reported to be a few hundred thousand dollars. That makes Banerjee the youngest tech entrepreneur ever funded by a VC firm.

“I didn’t think such a big company would ever invest in my company; that was pretty amazing,” Banerjee says.

With Intel’s funding, Braigo Labs plans to build a new prototype that better resembles a regular printer and bring it to market by next year. Banerjee says he has no plans to expand into other product categories at this point, but Braille printers seem to be just a part of a bigger dream he has in mind.

“I want to do engineering in the medical area when I grow up,” he says. “And I want to finish college.”
Click to expand...

He also presented at the Intel Capital Summit 2014 last week, with Intel Capital’s president Arvind Sodhani and Bloomberg’s Cory Johnson:

 
To me, the reaction to his invention seems creepy and sad in a way. He started out with the simple idea of helping people who have a difficult time, and now that he has succeeded and achieved something remarkable for someone so young, all of these "big players" swoop in to "help". So, while the Braille printer idea seems to have "taken off" (couldn't be stopped), I wonder whether this reaction will serve to actually limit his potential to develop as a human being and do further good? Is this the General Law in action?
 
Hi HowToBe,

Thanks for your reaction. I find it difficult to say, really.

It seems obvious that Banerjee simply is much too young to develop and market his idea all on his own, so I think it's a good thing that he could get help which he voluntarily accepted. Nevertheless, as always this looks like a mixed blessing at best. All will mainly depend on his own attitude, of course.

I agree that the reactions of the other participants have a whiff of self service and jumping the bandwagon around them. Which would be a bit vulture-like, I presume.

Appears too much like garnering for themselves other people's glory, I suppose; and that doesn't sit well with me neither.
 
It seems sort of like whenever a concentrated source of creative energy appears (a person or a group), psychopaths smell "food" and swoop in to parasitize on the endeavor. They can even do so from a distance simply by creating a twisted imitation of the true creative act (like snake oil as opposed to genuine medicine based on knowledge), thus stealing attention and legitimacy from the real thing.
 
What a smart guy! I'm sure it's a mixed blessing with this big company swooping in, but I agree with Palinurus, he is much too young to get it out on the market by himself. And now he has money which is going to be a blessing if he is going to stay true to what he said; “I want to do engineering in the medical area when I grow up,” he says. “And I want to finish college.”
We can only hope he will grow up to make more inventions for people in need.
 
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