Design, Development, and Evaluation of an Interactive Tactile Graphics Printer for the Blind and VisuallyImpaired

为盲人和视障人士设计、开发和评估交互式触觉图形打印机

• 批准号: 9122508
• 负责人: Michael J. Rosen
• 金额: $ 49.84万
• 依托单位: EASY, LLC
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-08-15 至 2018-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9122508
• 关键词: 3 year old; Address; Adult; Advocacy; Arts; Automobile Driving; Businesses; Communication; Communities; Computers; Consumer Organizations; Contracts; Critiques; Development; Disabled Persons; Distance Education; Education; Elements; Employment; Employment Opportunities; Engineering; Evaluation; Film; Floor; Flowcharts; Funding; Goals; Graph; Hand; Health; Home environment; Image; In Situ; Individual; Internet; Investments; K-12 Education; Lead; Life; Marketing; Mathematics; Methodology; Modification; Occupations; Outcome; Paper; Performance; Phase; Printing; Production; Readiness; Reading; Reproduction; Research; Research Assistant; Sales; Schools; Shapes; Site; Small Business Technology Transfer Research; Source; Specific qualifier value; Staging; Students; System; Tablets; Tactile; Technology; Time; Training Programs; Training and Education; Universities; Vendor; Vermont; Vision; Visual impairment; Workplace; Writing; Youth; base; blind; braille; college; commercialization; design; digital; experience; faculty research; improved; innovation; mathematical sciences; meetings; member; product development; prototype; research and development; response; software systems; symposium; technology/technique; tool; transmission process

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The ultimate goal of this project is to market an electromechanical and software system for Blind and Low Vision (B/LV) individuals that will enable interactive creation, communication and printing of Braille- annotated tactile graphics. In school, at home and in the workplace, virtually everyone needs to be able to produce a wide variety of freehand sketches, diagrams, driving directions, floor plans, designs, charts, graphs, flowcharts, hand-written, mathematics, and art. The B/LV community presently can purchase raised-line drawing kits, akin to pencil and paper, which do allow one-time production of tactile drawings by scribing with a stylus on plastic sheets. What users could not accomplish, until the advent of E.A.S.Y. LLC (Engineering to Assist and Support You) and its inTACT product line, is erasing and correction; repeated drawing and erasing on single sheets; copying and tactile reproduction on a "read-write" medium; and digital recording, transmission, and sharing of raised-line drawings. Absence of these capabilities has severe limits on the tools and topics of education, and dramatically narrowed employment opportunities. This Phase II STTR project will develop to the point of commercial readiness the inTACT tactile graphic Printer 2.0, an essential element of the product line which presently exists only as the alpha prototype generated by this team's Phase I project. The inTACT product line is the inaugural initiative of E.A.S.Y. LLC. It addresses the unmet needs outlined above through a system composed of (1) the inTACT Sketchpad (~100 units now sold, digitizing version prototyped); (2) the inTACT Eraser (~65 units now sold); and, (3) and the inTACT Printer, prototyped and evaluated in the Phase I project. The goal of the proposed STTR Phase II project is to engineer, evaluate and prepare a final commercial version 2.0 of the Printer. The engineering outcome of the project will be substantial new features and capacities necessary for optimizing the performance of the current prototype in ways defined through extensive field evaluation at nine sites of education, training, employment, advocacy, research, and accessible material production for the blind and visually impaired. A subcontract to the University of Vermont will provide access substantial effort from Dr. Michael Rosen, a member of the Engineering research faculty. Rosen is an expert in user interactive product development, design methodology, and development of products for the disabled. The UVM contract will further support and Engineering graduate research assistant. The E.A.S.Y. LLC business plan calls for marketing efforts in conjunction with the National Federation of the Blind, Perkins Products and other partner companies; expansion of the product line into tactile graphics materials for education, and development of new access technology. Funding for this plan is being sought from a combination of sales revenue, new investment, loans and partnerships with other vendors and distributors.

 描述（由适用提供）：该项目的最终目标是销售盲目和低视力（B/LV）个体的机电和软件系统，该系统将实现盲文注释触觉图形的交互式创建，通信和印刷。在学校，在家和工作场所中，几乎每个人都需要能够制作各种徒手的草图，图表，驾驶方向，平面图，设计，图表，图形，流程图，手写，手写，数学和艺术。 B/LV社区目前可以购买凸起的绘图套件，类似于铅笔和纸，这确实可以通过用手写笔上的塑料床单上的手写笔来一次性制作触觉图纸。在E.A.S.Y.冒险之前，用户无法完成什么LLC（为您提供帮助和支持您的工程）及其完整的产品线，正在擦除和更正；重复的绘画并在单张纸上擦除；在“读写”介质上复制和触觉复制；以及数字录制，传输和共享凸起线图。这些能力的缺乏对教育的工具和主题有严重的限制，并缩小了就业机会。该II阶段的STTR项目将开发到商业准备状态，完整的触觉图形打印机2.0，这是产品线的重要元素，仅作为该团队I期项目生成的Alpha原型而存在。完整的产品线是E.A.S.Y. LLC。它通过（1）完整的Sketchpad（现在出售的100个单位，数字化版本原型）来解决上面概述的未满足需求； （2）完整的橡皮擦（现在出售了约65个单位）； （3）和完整的打印机，在I期项目中进行了原型和评估。拟议的STTR II期项目的目标是设计，评估和准备打印机的最终商业版本2.0。该项目的工程成果将是通过在九个教育，培训，培训，就业，倡导，研究，研究和视觉障碍的材料生产中通过广泛的现场评估来定义的当前原型表现所必需的新功能和能力。佛蒙特大学的分包合同将为工程研究学院成员迈克尔·罗森（Michael Rosen）博士提供大量努力。罗森（Rosen）是用户交互式产品开发，设计方法的专家，以及为残疾人的产品开发。 UVM合同将进一步支持和工程研究生研究助理。 E.A.S.Y.有限责任公司商业计划呼吁与盲人，珀金斯产品和其他合作伙伴公司联合会共同进行营销工作；将产品线扩展为触觉图形材料，用于教育和开发新的访问技术。从销售收入，新投资，贷款和与其他供应商和分销商的合作伙伴关系的结合中，为此计划提供了资金。