Feb.29, 2012

Located in the northeast corner of Baltimore, The Maryland School for the Blind (MSB) provides school and residential programs to children and youth from 3~21 who are blind or visually impaired including those with multiple disabilities.

Assistant Professor Amy Hurst leads a research project - bring a Makerbot Thing-O-Matic 3D printer to The Maryland School for the Blind. She explains that it is hard to understand descriptions of graphs, and audio just isn't enough for the blind to be able to learn. But a 3D printer can make objects in 3D that the students can hold and feel.

Hurst and her students has developed VizTouch, a software that automatically generate tangible visualizations of coordinate spaces and the 3D printer can read and print.

After simply typing in the mathematical equation to VizTouch, it produces a printable shape file that many rapid prototyping machines such as the MakerBot can then read and create. The software is quick and can generate the file in less than a minute.

Together with Craig Brown from The George Washington University, Hurst worked with 6 students who has low or limited vision to understand 3D printed custom tactile visualizations of data graphs. With a 3D printer the school could not only provide a better teaching methods to its students to understand graphs, but also save the school time and cost. A 3D printer could print a simple objects in minutes While previously all hand-made models took much longer time. 3D printer helps the blind understand data graphs in a totally new way and opens up new horizons for education.

Source: retrieverweekly

 

Posted in 3D Printing Applications

 

 

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Rose Buscemi wrote at 5/23/2013 2:42:09 PM:

This is very interesting, however, the grammar in this article is atrocious. When writing about anything, especially an educational institution, grammar should be correct.



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