The simple tactile drawing board is impressive

Everyone needs to be able to communicate and express themselves, even those who are blind or have low vision. Embossing on paper with some kind of stylus is a popular low-tech option, but there is a big problem: pressing the paper from the top will leave dents, so you must write backwards or feel backwards to read letters. For this year’s Hackaday Awards, [Subir Bhaduri] Working on an excellent tool that can emboss the front side from the top of the paper.

It works like this: a pointed stylus pushes up from the bottom and meets the concave receiver on the top through the paper. Thanks to the parallelogram setting inspired by the pantograph, the two styluses will move in concert, which we think will make it easier for people with low vision to maintain direction while moving on the page.

The video below shows prototype #2, which is the first working prototype.Well, it works, but [Subir] Say it needs improvement, so prototype #3 is now in the draft stage. [Subir] Plan to fix the paper in place somehow and figure out how to keep the pantograph arm away from the user.

Pantographs are used for all kinds of things, but the sweetest use we have seen is to engrave information on chocolate hearts.