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Ten cells in one line
One braille cell is six switches. Ten cells run in a single line along the front edge, so a word is built without breaking it up.
Prototype in progress
Braille learning device
Eduble
A braille typing trainer with 60 push-lock switches that form ten braille cells. The switches left standing are the braille, and a light beside each dot shows which to keep and which to press down, so someone who does not know braille can still teach alongside.
Why it matters
Braille is hard to learn alone.
Textbooks exist. What is missing is a tool that tells you on the spot whether you got it right.
Paper workbooks and a stylus
Once you punch the slate there is no way to check yourself. Someone has to read it back to you.
No progress aloneOne-on-one instruction
The surest method, but you only learn while the teacher is there. The teacher has to know braille first.
Learning happens on a scheduleThe indicator
The switches left standing are the braille.
Each dot is a switch that locks down when pressed and pops back up when pressed again. A raised switch is a dot; a locked switch is an empty position. Under the fingertip the raised domes read as braille. Beside every switch is a small window that tells you, by colour, what to do next.
The person helping cannot read braille
Here is why the lights are there. Braille is hard to learn alone, and the person who could help usually cannot read it. That goes for parents and teachers alike. We decided the learner reading by touch and the helper watching with their eyes must know the same thing at the same moment, and gave that job to the light beside each dot.
Three colours are enough
Green is a dot to keep, red a dot to press down, and blinking orange a dot to raise again. The colours can be chosen in the app, so next to someone who cannot tell green from red you can switch to blue and orange. Brightness is set in the same place.
Only the cells in use light up
A two-cell word lights two cells and leaves the other eight dark. So building the single letter 아 does not mean tidying the other nine cells first. The app also says aloud how many cells a word uses.
The light only assists
This device puts reading by touch first. Because a raised switch is the braille, learners can read back the shape they just built with their fingertips. The lights are for the person beside them, and each stage relies on them a little less.
How it teaches
Build by copying at first, then write it yourself.
Each stage leans on the lights a little less. When the question changes the app says how many cells it uses, and only those cells light up.
STEP 1
Copy the pattern
Dots to keep light up green and dots to press down light up red. Following the lights, raising and lowering the switches, the hand learns the positions first.
STEP 2
Take dictation
Build the word you hear in braille. No lights this time: work from memory, and press the speaker key to hear which dots are standing on the board.
STEP 3
From memory
Someone beside you says a word and you build it. The answer appears neither on screen nor in the lights.
STEP 4
Check with the circle key
When it is built, press the ○ key. You hear and see right or wrong on the spot; a wrong cell is first only pointed out, then one dot at a time. The ◀ ▶ keys move between questions.
The learning platform
The device alone cannot teach.
The app decides what to build and in what order. It connects to the device over Bluetooth, and progress stays on that device even without an account.
0stages
From a single-cell letter to a whole sentence
0units
Three or four units in each stage
0
questions, every one checked against the braille engine
01
Questions by stage
You start with single-cell letters and move on to words, split words, and sentences. Each unit states exactly what is new in it.
02
Uncontracted and contracted
Learners who have not met the contraction rules yet get the full uncontracted form. You choose in Settings.
03
A ladder of hints
The first miss tells you which cell, the second one dot, the third everything. The answer never arrives all at once.
04
Review boxes
A question you got right comes back after 1, 3, 7, and 21 days, so you meet it again about when you would forget it.
Uncontracted and contracted
“Banana” is three cells and six cells at once.
Korean braille shortens the letters that come up most often. The shortened form is called contracted braille and the full form uncontracted. Until you have learned those rules, contracted braille is unreadable.
Which syllables shorten was not left to guesswork. All 11,172 Korean syllables were generated both ways and compared one by one, and 1,551 of them turned out to differ because of contraction. These charts come straight out of that comparison, so nothing in them is drawn by hand.
What is inside
The hand raises the dots.
Instead of braille cells pushed up electrically, the learner raises and lowers the switches by hand. That keeps the build simple, and the shape stays under the fingertips.
0cells
ten braille cells · one word at a time
0keys
60 dot switches and 4 control keys
0LEDs
one per key, marking dots to keep and to press down
What's next
Getting to the classroom
It is a prototype today. Here is the order we are building in.
Spoken prompts and dictation
The app reads a word aloud and you build it in braille. It also says how many cells the word uses and what is standing on the board now.
Practice history
Items you get right go into review boxes and come back after 1, 3, 7 and 21 days. The Progress screen shows how far you have come.
Classroom management
A teacher sees how far every device has got on one screen and sends out assignments.