Latest news with #braille
BBC News
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Portsmouth braille artist Mr Dot creates children's book
A blind artist who combines braille with pop art has created a children's the outside, Mr Dot and His Magical White Cane Adventures looks like an average book. But, when opened, one side is suitable for sighted readers and the other side is mirrored in braille, something that is not considered standard for braille has been created by Clarke Reynolds, from Portsmouth, who said he was "all about making braille universal" and wanted to normalise blindness. Mr Reynolds has gradually been losing his sight since he was six years old and has been using braille as an artform for almost seven his career evolved, he said he created the persona Mr Dot when he started going into schools to teach children about braille."Just like a typographer uses a letter, Mr Dot uses a dot," he explained. "For me the dot has more power, it becomes a vessel to host the English language." Mr Reynolds said using braille in his artwork was a way to make it "accessible for everyone"."People used to ask how I see and I used to say 'It's like looking through a thousand dots'," he continued."When I learnt braille, my brain just clicked in, like it was meant to be. "Taking an image and simplifying it down to its basic bones. Basically, I'm a pixelated artist, just that I don't use all the pixels, I take them away." Since creating the Mr Dot character, Mr Reynolds has travelled around the UK teaching more than 20,000 children about the use of braille, which is what inspired his new book."I'm all about making braille universal," he said."If I wanted a braille book, it would come in volumes because of how braille is done - they are thick books inside these sort of filofaxes and considered specialised in bookshops."I wanted it to look like a normal book. It's about treating it as a normal publication." You can follow BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
CBS News
07-07-2025
- Business
- CBS News
Johns Hopkins students invent braille label printer for visually impaired workers at Maryland brewery
A group of engineering students at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland put their invention skills to work and delivered by building a printer that can add braille to beer labels. It's a tool that can also be operated by blind or visually impaired people. This isn't an ordinary beer can label. It comes from a machine that can print beer can labels in braille. And a team of students made it happen. "On our team this year. It was myself, Catherine, and then my other teammates were Sophia, Gabriella, and Crystal, and we're all seniors, or we were all seniors in the Johns Hopkins mechanical engineering department," said Catherine Pollard, a recent mechanical engineering graduate of Johns Hopkins University. Pollard explained that she spent part of her last semester creating this one-of-a-kind braille beer can label printer for Blind Industries & Services of Maryland (BISM). "We said, can you come up with an automated process to feed a roll of labels through a printer and put the Braille on that label exactly where we need it," asked Mike Gosse, the president of BISM, the state's largest employer of blind and low-visioned workers. "But how do we put Braille on other packaging and particularly cylindrical objects? We needed to do this, partly for our upcoming braille beer event, where we wanted to have a braille label on our beer can." The students took a few months to design and build a machine capable of punching braille text into plastic beer labels as well as card stock, glossy mailers, and other materials that commercial braille-friendly printers can't do. Pollard and her team also developed the software that allows a printer to communicate with a braille word processor, which the nonprofit can use in its office to create plastic labels. "Our goals for the project were defined by the requirements that we had. So there were a few applications that BISM wanted to use the printer in. One of these was printing rolls of labels. Another one was printing large sheets of paper," explained Pollard. Printer for the visually impaired Not only are the labels printed in braille, but the students designed it so that BISM employees with no or low vision can operate it. "But we wanted to have an automated process and a more accessible process, where you didn't have to be sighted to line up the label," said Gosse. "Accessibility means that blind people can go out and you can do almost every job that a sighted person can do, and that's why we want to make sure that when we think about everything we do here at BISM." "I think we delivered something that would improve their lives, and that's not something that you always get to see on the time scale of one year," said Pollard. According to Johns Hopkins, the students have already printed 400 labels for Blind Spot, a beer crafted by Baltimore's own Checkerspot Brewing Company in collaboration with BISM as part of an annual fundraiser for those with vision loss. The new printer will save BISM employees from having to use a manual press to punch braille dots into more than 1,000 labels for their next fundraising event in 2026. Janay Reece Janay Reece came back home to Baltimore to join WJZ in August 2023. Before coming back to the Charm City, Janay was a morning anchor and reporter for WDBJ7 in Roanoke, VA. She joined the WDBJ7 morning team after spending a year as a multimedia journalist in the New River Valley for the station.
BBC News
06-07-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Plymouth entrepreneur honoured by King for braille business
A blind entrepreneur from Devon has described the pride of being honoured by the King as feeling like "a lion raised its head and roared on his chest".Brandon Hulcoop, who started his firm making braille greetings cards from his mum's kitchen table, scooped the NatWest/Kings Trust Enterprise award - attending a reception at Buckingham Palace where he met HRH King Hulcoop, 23, from Plymouth, told the BBC: "I never really understood I was making such a difference."Then I go to the awards ceremony and get people coming up and saying it's a wonderful thing." He added: "It's all been a bit of a surprise, it all happened because I was unemployed for so long, I went to the job centre and said 'all I need is one piece of kit so I can set up my own business'."He said one phone call from the advisor later and he was in touch with the King's Trust (formerly the Prince's Trust), who helped him get set said his business All Things Dotty was about helping visually impaired people to "see the world with their fingers"."It's opened a whole new world for visually impaired people," he added. He said he was inspired initially by his own challenges reading greetings cards."I got would get me birthday and Christmas cards and I couldn't read them."I'd be hovering my phone over it to try and read it and in the end family would read them to me which was great, but I could only read them that once."After searching for a solution, he found a gap in the market, and started to produce "tactile artwork".Describing "big A4 things folded in half", he said the business had since been finessed, with personalised braille greetings cards featuring a range of designs now on sale, as well as colouring books, artwork, menus, and braille tuition. 'Support is magical' Mr Hulcoop said he started using an embosser at home to create the cards, but he now has an said he had also completed a business diploma at a residential college "geared up" for visually impaired students."Look at me now compared to five years ago," he added."I always knew I wanted to be a braille teacher or do something in braille. I was led to believe the market was too small but now I know it's very very big," he added. "I just want people to recognise the importance of braille."Having a braille menu promotes that independence, you can say to people 'you're welcome here'. Thanking the customers and restaurants in Plymouth who supported him in the early days, he added: "Still getting support is magical for me as a person."Mike Hogan, from Plymouth, who is a mentor with the King's Trust, said: "Brandon is so inspirational in that if he comes up against an obstacle he will always try to find ways around that obstacle to complete things himself before asking for help."Sometimes he does ask and I'm only too pleased to help. He's always treated his disability as an ability in that it's not holding him back at all."He likes to show other people if he can achieve this why can't they and he's all about accessibility and inclusion."
CBS News
06-07-2025
- Business
- CBS News
Johns Hopkins students invent braille label printer for local brewery & visually impaired workers
A group of engineering students at Johns Hopkins University put their invention skills to work and delivered by building a printer that can add braille to beer labels. It's a tool that can also be operated by blind or visually impaired people. This isn't an ordinary beer can label. It comes from a machine that can print beer can labels in braille. And a team of students made it happen. "On our team this year. It was myself, Catherine, and then my other teammates were Sophia, Gabriella, and Crystal, and we're all seniors, or we were all seniors in the Johns Hopkins mechanical engineering department," said Catherine Pollard, a recent mechanical engineering graduate of Johns Hopkins University. Pollard explained that she spent part of her last semester creating this one-of-a-kind braille beer can label printer for Blind Industries & Services of Maryland (BISM). "We said, can you come up with an automated process to feed a roll of labels through a printer and put the Braille on that label exactly where we need it," asked Mike Gosse, the president of BISM, the state's largest employer of blind and low-visioned workers. "But how do we put Braille on other packaging and particularly cylindrical objects? We needed to do this, partly for our upcoming braille beer event, where we wanted to have a braille label on our beer can." The students took a few months to design and build a machine capable of punching braille text into plastic beer labels as well as card stock, glossy mailers, and other materials that commercial braille-friendly printers can't do. Pollard and her team also developed the software that allows a printer to communicate with a braille word processor, which the nonprofit can use in its office to create plastic labels. "Our goals for the project were defined by the requirements that we had. So there were a few applications that BISM wanted to use the printer in. One of these was printing rolls of labels. Another one was printing large sheets of paper," explained Pollard. A printer for the visually impaired Not only are the labels printed in braille, but the students designed it so that BISM employees with no or low vision can operate it. "But we wanted to have an automated process and a more accessible process, where you didn't have to be sighted to line up the label," said Gosse. "Accessibility means that blind people can go out and you can do almost every job that a sighted person can do, and that's why we want to make sure that when we think about everything we do here at BISM." "I think we delivered something that would improve their lives, and that's not something that you always get to see on the time scale of one year,' said Pollard. According to Johns Hopkins, the students have already printed 400 labels for Blind Spot, a beer crafted by Baltimore's own Checkerspot Brewing Company in collaboration with BISM as part of an annual fundraiser for those with vision loss. The new printer will save BISM employees from having to use a manual press to punch braille dots into more than 1,000 labels for their next fundraising event in 2026.
CBS News
27-06-2025
- Business
- CBS News
Johns Hopkins engineering students invent printer for Maryland brewery's braille labels
Engineering students at Johns Hopkins University invented a printer for a Maryland brewery that adds braille writing to beer labels, university officials said. Nonprofit Blind Industries & Services of Maryland (BISM) reached out to the university's mechanical engineering school in 2024, asking for a printer that could include braille writing. Inventing a beer label-friendly braille printer The students began designing and building the machine in September. University officials said the invention is able to punch braille text onto plastic beer labels and other materials that commercial braille printers are not able to accommodate. BISM is the largest employer of blind and low-vision workers in Maryland, according to university officials. The students were able to design the printer so that BISM employees with low or no vision can use it. Unlike other options, the students' printer has open hardware that makes it easier to operate. "You can reach your hand in and feel everything going on inside our printer. Having open hardware that allows people to touch all the components was important," said Catherine Pollard, a mechanical engineering senior and project team member. "We really took into consideration who would be operating the machine and how they were going to use it." The group of students also created software that helps the printer communicate with a braille word processor and photo design software that the nonprofit uses in its office. "Seeing how much adaptive technology BISM has already incorporated into their lives was inspiring, and it helped us understand how our product could slot into their day-to-day work," said Gabriella Hu, a senior in the Mechanical Engineering Department. The engineering students printed 400 labels for Blind Spot, a beer crafted by Checkerspot Brewing Company in Baltimore. The brewery works with BISM for an annual fundraiser that supports individuals with vision loss. The printer should prevent BISM employees from having to use a manual press to punch braille dots into thousands of labels next year, JHU officials said.
