Tech Nexus

For a competition named Tech Nexus which was hosted in our college by IEEE PES and Avishkara clubs, we developed an affordable braille printer named DotBudget , aimed at supporting visually challenged students with improved braille literacy in classrooms. With the essential collaboration of Alekh Hari Kumar, our team engineered a fully custom 3D-printed chassis, incorporating stepper motors and a servo motor combined with poker mechanisms to precisely emboss braille dots. We based the control system on an Arduino Nano microcontroller and developed a Pyqt5 desktop application through which users can paste any textual content.

This input is programmatically converted to braille alphabets, guiding the embosser to print tactile documents efficiently. During our preparation, we discovered that existing braille printers are expensive industrial models priced from ₹1.5 lakhs to ₹12 lakhs, which are impractical for classroom use. Hence, our focus was on designing a cost-effective, scalable alternative. Our prototype costs just ₹20,000, offering a 70%+ cost reduction compared to current market devices. Even when employing larger, more powerful motors for better speed and precision, the cost remains below ₹25,000, making this an accessible technological solution for educational institutions promoting inclusiveness and accessibility.

Our project was judged by a corporate professional from Honeywell, whose expert evaluation added significant credibility to our work. We are proud to have competed against 20 teams and secured second place, winning a ₹5,000 cash prize in recognition of our innovative design and impactful potential. This accolade motivates us to continually improve our solution and contribute meaningfully to educational accessibility for visually impaired students.