Watch: A special 3D-printing pen allows visually impaired children to draw for the first time
The groundbreaking pen creates lines with plastic, which heats and cools rapidly, so those with vision loss can actually touch and feel what they’ve created.
Yusuf Huraira has complete vision loss, which means he’s never had the experience of drawing with a pen. He has had to rely either on Braille, or on his teachers or fellow students to help him.
However, a 3D printing pen is helping the visually impaired students at Yusuf’s school, Priestly Smith, get creative as part of a trial. 3Doodler’s latest pen creates lines with plastic, which heats and cools rapidly, so not only can the students draw in the air, but visually impaired children can actually touch and feel what they’ve created.
“Using the pen, I have far more control on what I can do with it. It’s an experience for people just to have a pen in their hand and to draw it and feel the results of what they’ve drawn,” says Yusuf, in the BBC video above.
Though the pen has been around for a while, it recently received the endorsement of the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), a major UK-based charity. They recognised the 3Doodler pen as “easy-to-use” after testing it for one year with several groups of students with vision loss and their teachers. The pen is extremely user-friendly, and includes temperature settings, audio support for learners and tactile buttons. Watch it in action (below):
