With the assistance of technology, maker spirit is trending these days. More people start to turn their ideas into homemade inventions with readily available materials. Even the president of America hosted a maker event at the White House to promote the maker spirit.
A perfect example of maker is a 13 years old student named Shubham Banerjee. He started his invention journey at the age of 12 when he discovered that braille printers on the market were costly and heavy for the blind which cost, at least, $2,000 and weigh over 20 pounds.
Shubham Banerjee, the inventor of Braigo
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With the thought of helping the blind to read, he decided to make a lighter and cheaper braille printer. He made his first $350 braille printer from Lego and named it Braigo which was a combination of Braille and Lego.
Braigo
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After he received support from the blind community and won numerous awards with Braigo, he formed Braigo Labs with the help of his parents to make more sophisticated and affordable market version printer for theblind. Few months later, he released Braigo 2.0 prototype which was made from a desktop printer and a newly released Intel computer chip. Like its predecessor, Braigo 2.0 was light and portable, but it’s far more advanced. It can translate electronic text into Braille before printing.
Braigo 2.0
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The printer soon impressed several Intel executives that they invested an undisclosed amount of money to aid Braigo Labs for further R&D. Since then,Braigo Labs had hired several professionals to work on the project and hopedthe real affordable printer that cost less than $500 will come out soon.
His invention proves that everyone can do better to help the people in need, no matter what age you are, or what level of education you might be. With determination and dedication,everyone can redesign the world and change others’ lives.
Reference:
http://www.popsci.com/braille-printer-born-lego
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/01/20/braille-lego-printer/22055135/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/braigo-labs-braille-printer-tech-firm-launched-by-boy-13-1.2919407