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I used Lego to design a farm for people who are blind – like me

129 points by ColinWright

by retrac

3 subcomments

Sensory disabilities like deafness and blindness are disabling because the world is not oriented to people with sensory disabilities.
I am reminded that the Deaf have their own mythology. American Sign Language is distinct; it's not English. Accordingly it has its own culture, including its own myths. Many of them are fables and stories from the western tradition slightly adapted. But some are original.
One common theme in American Deaf mythology (but I'd bet it's told elsewhere too) is stories about a world which is visually oriented. There's an ASL word for this world but English doesn't have one. Sometimes it's translated as Eyeth a.k.a. "Eye-Earth".
It's more than just a world where everyone is deaf or where everyone communicates in ASL. It has something like spiritual meaning to some of those who tell stories about it; in that world the Deaf are not disabled, not in the social way that matters.

by vunderba

2 subcomments

This is great, but boy I'm glad I took the time to actually read the article.
I assumed it was about someone who took a huge number of standard rectangular LEGO bricks with the 6/8 raised studs, then laboriously shaved them off to create all the necessary braille patterns, and used them on large LEGO boards to quickly assemble messages/notifications for blind readers.
Reality - it's about using lego to help "visualize" architecture.
EDIT: Apparently this already exists!
https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/play-with-braille-english...

by a_paddy

0 subcomment

Lego created a specific series of bricks in the 1960's for this exact purpose, called Modulex.
Originally designed for architects etc, it's still going. https://youtube.com/watch?v=I_OUxVuoxjk

by nephihaha

0 subcomment

I know the part of Scotland where he has set up shop. There used to be a lot of toy farmers and small holders popping up round there and failing within a few years. Most of them were from big cities and from England, and pretty clueless about farming. They would often try something exotic like quail (if they had little money) and alpacas (if they had more). Mr Duxbury seems to be going down a similar line, although he does have a farming family background.

by athampraveen

0 subcomment

My son is very interested in this. I am building an application to create designs online. Mainly to keep him away from video reels :)
https://app.brixox.com/

by layer8

2 subcomments

I wonder how the non-random color patterns in the pictured LEGO build came to be. Maybe he’s not 100% blind?

by aetherspawn

0 subcomment

I was thinking the other day that there should be wearable bangles for blind people with ultrasonic sensors or something that encode a 360 degree view of the world into vibrations.
If each bangle had 40 or so pixels, you’d get 80 pixels with one on each arm.

by bitwize

0 subcomment

Was not disappoint when I saw the photos of the models he built. I had expected a hodgepodge of brick colors due to color not being a meaningful constraint on a blind person's Lego build.

by 3tgsh

0 subcomment