BRL+ | Devpost

Inspiration

We were inspired by a simple but troubling reality, access to braille is still a luxury. With traditional braille printers costing around $5,000, many visually impaired individuals, schools, and communities cannot afford something as fundamental as reading. In a world where information is everywhere, too many people are still locked out of it. We wanted to change that.

What it does

BRL+ is a braille printer that can take text, images, PDFs, Youtube videos, and more and convert it into braille and stamp it onto paper for visually impaired people. The cost of the attachments we designed for the 3D printer and all other components is under $10!

How we built it

We began by designing BRL+’s custom components using CAD and prepared them for individual prints. While the parts were printing for approximately eight hours, we developed the software needed to drive the system and handle braille translation. Once the hardware components were complete, we modified the 3D printer by removing unnecessary parts, such as the hotend, and replacing them with our custom embossing mechanism. After assembling and calibrating the system, we integrated the hardware with our software pipeline. By the end we had transformed a 3D printer to a braille printer bringing BRL+ to life.

Challenges we ran into

Almost everything we attempted did not work as expected at first.

Once we had all the components printed, we realized our original plan to trap the spring inside the cylinder with a lid wasn't feasible. The force from the spring's compression was simply too strong, causing the lid to pop off no matter how we secured it. To solve this, we decided to lodge an Allen key through both the cylinder and the spring, effectively locking it in place and making it impossible for the spring to exit.

Additionally, the spring we had was far too long, and we found it impossible to cut with the tools on hand, including pliers. To resolve this, we went to Home Depot, where we were able to have it professionally cut to our required length.

As for the software, our luck was not any better.

We faced challenges especially with the integration between the desktop application and 3D printer's firmware, where the system was unable to recognize the printer and send valid commands. Troubleshooting was lengthy and extensive. As a result getting the hardware instructions tuned and pushed correctly was very time consuming.

The autonomous voice agent powered by Elevenlabs proved to be difficult to get operational. Since our software stack involved a multi-tiered architecture with the front-end written in Electron and back-end in Python on a Flask server, the communication between audio streams via WebSocket proved to be nearly impossible to debug effectively. Nonetheless, we were able to persevere and get a working prototype of an agentic voice workflow.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are incredibly proud of completing the entire project within the given timeframe. Despite the technical setbacks, we persevered through every challenge we faced.

What we learned

We learned just how hard it is to plan ahead and how no matter how much you plan, everything usually still ends up going wrong. Successfully navigating these hurdles not only allowed us to meet our deadline but also gave us a much deeper understanding of the iterative design process and the importance of creative problem-solving.

What's next for BRL+

BRL+ showed us that accessibility doesn’t have to be expensive or complex. With the right mindset, everyday technology can be transformed into tools that empower millions. This project is just the beginning.