Kavita Kanan Chandra

Achance visit to a blind school for a school project turned out to be an eye-opener for Santokh Singh and Khushwant Rai, two Jalandhar-based the class XI students of Police DAV Public School, Jalandhar. They had gone to the National School of Blind to study the life of the visually challenged students for an English language school project but it was the slow printing process in Braille that caught their attention.

“We were really shocked to see that it took five-to-seven minutes to print a single page in Braille,” said Santokh. "We had never seen such slow printing before so this aspect made us realise that how difficult it was for the visually impaired and the management of the school, too," said Khushwant. The printing was done manually and was time consuming.

When the duo asked whether there were no printers available for printing in Braille their innocent question was met with a smile by the management. The authorities asked them to help out if possible.

The compassionate duo made up their mind to do something for these visually challenged students. Something as easy as printing should not be a hindrance in the path of education for the blind.

The duo initially tried searching for a Braille printer but was disappointed by its prohibitive price. The small-volume Braille printers cost between $1,800 and $5,000 and large-volume ones may cost between $10,000 and $80,000. This was too expensive for any blind school in India.

As their search for a low-cost printer coming to a naught, the duo decided to experiment. Zeroing down on dot-matrix printer, they decided to develop a Braille printer of their own.

Santokh always had a penchant for science and Khushwant had already done a bit of innovation like developing electronic stethoscope, water level indicators and LED displays.

"We spoke to our computer teacher and asked for his help," said the duo. The teacher encouraged them and provided them with financial support from the school. It took them four months to develop the first prototype of the low-cost Braille printer but a lot of improvisation was still needed. Finally, after two years of working on the printer, the final product showed 90 per cent efficiency as compared the high-end Braille printer available in the market. And their braille printer cost just around $200 (Rs 12,000).

"We tested our low-cost Braille printer at National School of Blind at Jalandhar. They were very happy to see a low-cost Braille printer with such good efficiency as compared to actual a Braille printer," said Santokh and Khushwant.

The Braille printers are printers that are used to print Braille (language for visually impaired people).The prints of Braille are the embossed dots on sheets of paper.

According to Santokh and Khushwant, the low-cost Braille printer is a modification of conventional dot matrix printer. The dot matrix printers have 9, 18 or 24 pins, which strike over the ink ribbon. This prints letters on a paper when pins strike over it. The paper is supported by a roller when letters are printed on it. By altering the size of the roller and removing the ink ribbon, the pins are made to strike the paper directly and give the desired impression.

Santokh is now pursuing computer science engineering in NIT Jalandhar and Khushwant is doing electronics engineering in PEC University of Technology, Chandigarh.

The duo bagged the innovation award by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) at the 8th biennial National Grassroots innovations award function held at Rashtrapati Bhavan in March this year for their compassionate invention. These printers can be easily installed in various institutions for visually challenged persons, government offices as well as private institutions.

"Currently, we are in Gandhinagar, Gujrat; working with the NIF on this project. Instead of using a factory-made dot matrix printer, we are now making our own printer, including the hardware and software. Perhaps we will be able to reduce the cost below Rs 7000, which includes our own application(Word processor) to run the device," said the duo.

The demand of this printer in blind community is very high. A blind school from where it all started is also interested in getting this printer.

Source: http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/spectrum/society/printing-a-heart-felt-story/92481.html