Unrestricted Body-minds
盲文打字机
braille typewriter
Braille typewriter
Shanghai Public-Private Joint Lihua Physics Instrument Factory,
1957
From China Special Education Museum
A braille typewriter resembles a regular typewriter but is capable of producing embossed dots. It features seven main keys, with six of them corresponding to the six dots of the Braille system, along with a space key.
This object is the only example of a typical domestically produced braille typewriter discovered in China so far. It was designed in imitation of the Marburg machine manufactured by the Marburg Blind School's affiliated braille typewriter factory in Germany. The design of this typewriter is relatively cumbersome, made entirely of cast iron, which makes it sturdy and durable. When typing reaches a predetermined point on each line, a bell rings to indicate the need for a new line.
Erika Picht
Mini braille typewriter
Mechanische Werkstatt für Blindenhilsmittel der DDR, Leipzig, Germany, c. 1970s-1980s
Donated by Zheng Rongchen (blind)
From China Special Education Museum
"Picht" refers to Oscar Picht (1871-1945), a teacher at the school for the blind in Berlin. In 1899, Picht invented a type of braille typewriter. His design was further refined by multiple German manufacturers and became one of the most popular braille typewriters in Europe. "Erika" was an East German typewriter brand. When the brand's braille typewriters were introduced, the president of the Association of the Blind and Visually Impaired of the GDR strongly advocated for Oscar Picht's name to be associated with them. Even after the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990, braille typewriters bearing the name "Erika Picht" continued to be produced.
This miniature typewriter was specifically designed for writing on note paper or index cards.
Perkins blind typewriter
(Perkins Brailler)
Designed by David Abraham, Howe Memorial Press, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, Massachusetts, USA;
Released in 1951, continued to be used to this day.
From China Special Education Museum
Perkins School for the Blind, formerly known as Perkins Institution for the Blind, was founded in 1829 and is the first school for the blind in the United States. Helen Keller was a notable alumna. In honor of the first director, Samuel Gridley Howe (1801-1876), the school's printing department was named the Howe Memorial Press. In the 1930s, David Abraham, a teacher in the Industrial Arts Department, designed a braille typewriter that was more compact and user-friendly compared to other typewriters of the time. The Perkins Brailler, as it was named, received positive feedback from students at the school. It was produced by the Howe Memorial Press at Perkins School for the Blind after World War II. The object on display was sponsored by the American Foundation for the Blind. Since its commercial release in 1951, the Perkins Brailler has become the most popular and widely used braille typewriter in the world. It continues to be used as an instructional device in special education institutions to this day.
Portable braille typewriter
Fuzhou Maixin Trading Co., Ltd., (patent no. 94216466.0)
Patent application filed in 1994
Donated by Luo Zhuling (blind)
From China Special Education Museum
(patent no. 94216466.0)
(patent no. 94216466.0)
Apollo Brailler MIMIIC
Japan,c. 1990s
From China Special Education Museum
Released by Japan Development Center for Blind Tools, manufactured by Maruzen Seiki Kogyo Co., Ltd. and Zenpan Typewriter Co., Ltd.,c. 1990s
TERRATYPE
braille typewriter
Japan, c. 1990s, portable
From China Special Education Museum
This type of Braille typewriter has a carriage that moves horizontally from right to left across the paper, hence it is sometimes referred to as a "crab writer."
The standard Japanese Braille system used since 1890 could only write in kana and could not represent Chinese characters (kanji). The "Tenkanji" 6-dot Braille system was developed in the mid-20th century to write kanji. The "Kantenji" 8-dot Braille system came out at about the same time, which added two dots to represent the structure of kanji. This was to ensure that blind people were not left unaware of ideographic writing. The use of kanji could bring them closer to mainstream print used by the sighted population, promoting communication and common understanding of their language.
Blind People's Writing Technology
盲文写字板
braille writing slate
Braille writing slates are rectangular writing tools made of metal or plastic, consisting of two-hinged parts, the upper part called the cover board, and the bottom part called the base board. They come in various specifications depending on their purpose. For example, a 1-line braille writing slate opens and closes vertically and is used specifically for writing braille on labelling tape or at the top of cards. On the other hand, a 27-line braille writing slate can fit an entire A4-sized sheet of paper. The base board has six spherical recesses in each cell. Near the four corners of the slate, there are paper clips and eyelets that secure the braille writing paper sandwiched between the cover board and the base board. Braille writing involves using a braille stylus to emboss recessed dots on braille writing paper, which are then read by touch as raised dots, commonly referred to as "touching forwards and writing backwards."
Upper row from left:
18-line braille slate
Leningrad, Soviet Union
Unknown date
Donated by Huang Jiani (blind)
from China Special Education Museum
27-line braille slate (A4 size)
The Amity Foundation
1980
from China Special Education Museum
Leningrad, Soviet Union Unknown date Donated by Huang Jiani (blind)
The Amity Foundation 1980s
The Amity Foundation 1980s
Leningrad, Soviet Union Unknown date Donated by Huang Jiani (blind)
Middle row:
Braille styluses
France
Unknown date
Donated by Zhou Xilin (blind)
from China Special Education Museum
Bottom row from left:
WINTECH Mfg. Co., Ltd., Thailand Late 20th century to early 21st century Note: There is a label on the back that says “Donation from the Evangelical Center for Visually Impaired ”
WINTECH Mfg. Co., Ltd., Thailand Late 20th century to early 21st century Note: There is a label on the back that says “Donation from the Evangelical Center for Visually Impaired ”
Japan c. 1910 Donated by Shao Suxian (blind),from China Special Education Museum
WINTECH Mfg. Co., Ltd., Thailand Late 20th century to early 21st century Note: There is a label on the back that says “Donation from the Evangelical Center for Visually Impaired ”
9-line braille slate
WINTECH Mfg. Co., Ltd., Thailand
Late 20th century to early 21st century
Note: There is a label on the back that says "Donation from the Evangelical Center for Visually Impaired "
from China Special Education Museum
China Welfare Association of Persons
with Visual Disabilities 4-line braille slate
Shanghai Metalworking Hardware Factory
1950s
from China Special Education Museum
6-line braille slate
Japan Braille Library
1980s
from China Special Education Museum
4-line braille slate
Shenyang Jianxin Factory,
Unknown date
from China Special Education Museum
Perkins Model 13 4-line braille slate
Howe Press, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, Massachusetts, USA,
1920s-1930s
from China Special Education Museum
1-line braille slate (cut from 4-line slate)
Shenyang Jianxin Factory
Unknown date
from China Special Education Museum
1-line braille slate
2-line braille slate set
USA
21st century
from China Special Education Museum
Japan
c. 1910
Donated by Shao Suxian (blind),
from China Special Education Museum
The Possibilities of Tactility
Released on May 18, 2021
Helen Keller Inspiring Women™
Barbie Doll
(Barbie® Inspiring Women™)
Helen Keller (1880-1968) was an American author, speaker, educator, social activist, and advocate for the blind, deaf and deafblind. Helen Keller lost her sight and hearing due to a high fever when she was 19 months old. Despite this tremendous challenge, she displayed remarkable courage and unwavering determination to complete her education, becoming the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
The Helen Keller Barbie® doll holds a book featuring Braille on the cover, and her outfit is inspired by her early 20th-century student attire. The packaging, designed in partnership with the National Federation of the Blind, features Braille on both sides. The background inside the packaging represents Radcliffe College at Harvard University, where Helen attended from 1900 to 1904.
"Tactual Atlas of China"
Sponsored by the National Administration of Surveying and Mapping, compiled by the Surveying and Mapping Science Research Institute of the National Administration of Surveying and Mapping, published by the China Braille Press, printed by Shanxi Provincial Surveying and Mapping Bureau
March 1991
Donated by Xu Bailun (blind)
from China Special Education Museum
The "Tactual Atlas of China" is the first standard educational map designed specifically for special education in China. According to the needs and characteristics of blind students and geography classes, this special map uses specially designed tactile graphic symbols and braille to represent spatial distribution and connections. The atlas is in octavo format and consists of 124 maps, divided into two volumes. It is printed in single color and uses silk screen printing technology with puff ink to make the map's elements raised, providing tactile information for users.
Compulsory education curriculum standard experimental teaching aid for schools for the blind - "Touch and Feel Colorful Images for Biology"
(7th grade, first semester)
Made in China
Unknown date
From China Special Education Museum
In addition to those who are completely blind, there are also people with low vision who still retain sense of light and can perceive shapes and colors to some extent. "Touch and Feel Colorful Images" use graphic contours and raised dots to convert visual objects into tactile objects. Compared to traditional braille books, these tactile colorful images not only feature vibrant patterns but also different line thicknesses, which better represent the information within the images. This makes them suitable for use by students with low vision. This set of images consists of 24 colorful illustrations, including the food chain, the plant cell structure model, and the water cycle, etc.
Tactual map of campus
Made in U.S.A
Unknown date
Courtesy MIT Museum
Tactual map of the MIT campus made of cream-colored polyvinyl chloride.
The map also came with a user's manual and directory in both a paper and a casette version
Tactual map of the MIT campus made of cream-colored polyvinyl chloride.
Tactual map of the MIT campus made of cream-colored polyvinyl chloride. The raised surfaces (in green) represent the built environment of the campus, with different kinds of terrain (buildings, sidewalks, grass, and other features) made with different textures. A key in one corner defines what each texture represents.
In 1972, architecture students Ann Kidwell and Peter Greer designed this campus map for the blind. Working with blind MIT and Harvard students, they investigated how these students conceptualized MIT’s campus and created graphic techniques to create a tactile representation of it. The map was made of flexible PVC rugged enough to stand up to heavy wear, but cheap enough for mass production. The MIT Planning Office helped fund the initial map and distributed copies to sight-impaired students.
In addition, the American Foundation for the Blind, which was a partner in this project, published a book (Sites, Perception and the Nonvisual Experience by Kidwell and Greer) about this project. The map also came with a user's manual and directory in both a paper and a casette version.
Braille Bricks
Made in China
2022
The Future Laboratory, Tsinghua University
it is designed based on the combination of initials, finals, tones, and numbers.
The Braille Bricks placed in a blue rectangular box with uniformly sized LEGO bricks.
it is designed based on the combination of initials, finals, tones, and numbers.
Figure 1: The number of bricks in each LEGO set is 400, and it is designed based on the combination of initials, finals, tones, and numbers to meet the needs of daily communication and teaching. It is also an effective tool for popularizing Braille.
Figure 2: The Braille Bricks placed in a blue rectangular box with uniformly sized LEGO bricks (3.2cm in length, 1.6cm in width, and 0.96cm in height), colors and the arrangement of the protrusions on the top of the bricks are different.
Computer for the blind-refreshable braille display
Made in China
Presented at the 2022 Asia Haptics Conference
Jiao Yang's research group, The Future Laboratory, Tsinghua University
A graphical tactile display
Two visually impaired students from Beijing United University are experiencing the device.
A graphical tactile display
Figure 1: A graphical tactile display, achieving functions such as braille display, graphic display, braille text input, voice assistance, sound output, and online search. It is widely used in schools, libraries, museums, online shopping and other scenarios. (From Jiao Yang's research group, presented at the 2022 Asia Haptics Conference)
Figure 2: Two visually impaired students from Beijing United University are experiencing the device.
Click on the video "button" to play the video:The video introduces the large-format graphical tactile display terminal by the Future Laboratory, Tsinghua University
The Past and Present of Cyborgs
“I asked Minsky about the role of the body in developing emotional systems. Minksy replied, almost in a stern manner, to my question: If the body was paramount, how were disabled people or those with limited control over their bodies able to think? … The analogies between disabled bodies and machine were a recurring theme.”
——Kathleen Richardson: An Anthropology of Robots and AI : Annihilation Anxiety and Machines.
Courtesy MIT Museum
Color photograph of inner mechanisms of prosthetic devices displayed on a rack labelled "Liberty Technology".
Robot Upper Limb System
Student Works of the 28th "Challenge Cup" Special Prize at Tsinghua University
Invertor: Che Demeng, a 2007 undergraduate student from the Department of Mechanical Engineering
Instructor: Zhang Wenzeng, Department of Mechanical Engineering
The upper limb system of the robot has humanoid arms and hands, compact structure, high integration, and a total of 34 degrees of freedom. It is controlled by a 26 grid motor drive; each robotic arm adopts 3 joints to achieve a large workspace, and the 6 arm joints adopt the same modular structure; each hand has 5 fingers, each finger adopts a similar multi tendon rope parallel underactuated modular structure, and its hand proportion size is consistent with that of a human hand. Accurate control of the system is achieved through the integration of control modules, driver modules, and user modules.
This system has great research value and application prospects in the fields of rehabilitation engineering, extreme operations, and robotics technology.
Rod cluster adaptive robot hand
Student Works of the 35th "Challenge Cup" Second Prize at Tsinghua University
Invertors: Fu Hong,et.al., 2014 undergraduate students from the Department of Mechanical Engineering
Instructor: Zhang Wenzeng, Department of Mechanical Engineering
The rod cluster adaptive robot hand designed in this project is used to grasp objects, utilizing motors, sliding tube components, small gears, large gears, and elastic ropes to provide grip force on objects in multiple directions. It can effectively grasp various shapes of objects placed in different directions, comprehensively realizing the free grasping function.
Compared to traditional robot hands, this cluster adaptive robot hand has advantages such as simple structure, easy to control, and low energy consumption.
MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Robotic Arm (Minsky Arm)
Courtesy MIT Museum
This is the second "arm" developed by Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert in their multi-year project to develop a computer system that could "see" and "manipulate" objects independent of human control.
Disability is Situational
Stair-Climbing Wheelchair
Courtesy MIT Museum
self-propelled stair-climbing and descending wheelchair - Courtesy MIT Museum
Clear plastic wheelchair frame with rubber-tipped spoked wheels (large in front, small in back); motor in back; white profile siting in chair. On red-painted wooden steps.
Ernesto Blanco has been waiting half a century for someone to build a full-scale working version of his self-propelled stair-climbing and descending wheelchair. In 1959, the National Inventors Council offered a $5,000 prize for the design of a wheelchair that could climb stairs. Blanco submitted his design in 1962. The Council never awarded the prize, but Blanco was so convinced his design would work that he built this one-quarter scale model to prove the concept. How? The secret is the angles and the fact that "static reactions are always vertical and have no tendency to slip," explained Blanco.
Blanco not only brought this "inventional wisdom" to his MIT students, but also conveyed a deeply held belief that solving a problem such as a stair-climbing wheel was a form of social justice and, therefore, progress. In 1999, Dean Kamen introduced the iBot, a fantastic, motorized wheelchair, but production stopped in 2009 because neither insurance nor Medicare would pay for it. Blanco saw that as a challenge and the reason he still wanted someone to build his chair.
Manual wheelchair user self operated electric upstairs and downstairs kit
The second prize of the 41st Challenge Cup of Tsinghua University, and the engineering Practice and Innovation Team Award of the second Tsinghua Craftsman Competition
Inventor: Liu Zhenxiao, Duan Xiaohan, Qin Yiyang and Li Zixi, 2020 undergraduates of Xingjian College
Instructor: Tian Guangyu, Vehicle engineering college
This work aims to modify and upgrade manual wheelchairs currently on the market, providing a safe, detachable, and single person self operated wheelchair assistance kit for climbing and descending stairs. This work uses tracked stair climbing technology, powered by an electric motor, and adopts a scissor fork incremental electric push rod structure for attitude control. It uses distance sensors and six axis gyroscopes to sense the position and posture of the wheelchair, and achieves stable and safe passenger self operation up and down the stairs through electronic control. A single charge can go up and down stairs about 148 times, with a slope of 0-35 °, a speed of 0.3m/s, and a maximum load of 100kg.
Click on the video "button" to play the video:
the video introduces a demo of the electric upstairs and downstairs kit
The Art of Synesthesia
Tangible Ceramic Music Interface
Wang Yun 's research group, The Future Laboratory, Tsinghua University
Presented at the 2022 AsiaHaptics Conference
The ceramic tactile music player is a tangible music playback interface that allows people to experience a 30 second selection of the guzheng song "Spring River Flower Moonlight" through multimodal perception. The device mainly consists of ceramic modules, capacitive touch sensors, main control board, and support structure. After the touch signal is input into the computer, it will be connected to the virtual instrument and output MIDI audio. The circular ceramic module belt is not only a physical music progress bar, but also a carrier of various tactile information. Each ceramic module group maps a note to achieve coupling between tactile signals (size, surface texture, and positional changes) and musical elements (length, fingering, and pitch), providing a tangible experience for the experimenter when experiencing music. When the experimenter touches the device, if their arms and hands move too fast, too slow, or too discontinuous, they will immediately receive audio feedback so that they can choose to fine tune their movements to match the correct music speed.
Music Pool
Accessible Music Installation Design Workshop
The Future Laboratory, Tsinghua University
By using the similarities between sound waves and water waves, the audibility of sound waves is transformed into the visibility of water waves, and then the image of water waves is transformed into the entire three-dimensional space through different colors of light and shadow, forming a complete audio-visual experience.
The initial demo is connected to the MIDI keyboard through a pressure sensor to obtain the scale, intensity, and rhythm played by the user. Then connect to Arduino, which controls seven servo motors (corresponding to seven tones), fans, and motors to gently tap, blow, and hit the water surface, forming different ripple effects. The beauty of the ripple form is used to demonstrate the harmony and dissonance of the music. At the same time, combined with real sampled water droplet sound, it provides a complete auditory experience for the healthy listener.
Click on the video "button" to play the video:
the video introduces the Accessible Music Installation Design Workshop