The Braille system of raised-dots writing has always mystified me. It seems like so much magic that a person can read words and sentences by feeling bumps on a page. But it works. It exists and it is widespread. Braille dots can be found all around the world, in public and private places in every city. It COULD be more useful than it already is, but one of the largest problems in the way of this reality is the amount of people who haven’t learned to decipher the system. Danielle Pecora’s here to rectify that with a bit of fun.
Design group DESIGN 21 recently had a Game Changers Competition for global game design. You know who won this contest? Danielle Pecora. The project Pecora entered and won this contest with was the “be-B: Braille Education Ball,” a method for both blind and sighted users to learn the Braille system using a challenging and educational game.
The be-B consists of a ball and 26 magnetically attached pegs. One one side of each peg is a letter from the modern latin alphabet, on the other is the corresponding Braille character. Each of these pegs has a matching hole in the ball. The object of the game, as you may have guessed, is to match up each of the letters with its corresponding hole. Each time a peg is placed in a hole, and that hole is correct, a chime sounds and the name of the letter is “spoken.” Don’t get em mixed up!
Games, games, everywhere, teaching people knowledge so they take more care.
That’s the rhyme I just made up for this lovely design.
Designer: Danielle Pecora
