Links

General interest

• Blind makers mailing list - Not affiliated with this website but all the interests overlap.

• Blind Handyman mailing list - Includes discussion on a wide variety of topics from woodworking to electronics

Electronics

• Blind Arduino Project - A community of Blind hobbyists using the popular Arduino microcontroller platform to build electronics. Has a blog and a mailing list.

• Blind soldering basic instructions

• Blind Electronics Wiki - Great collection of safety, approaches to learning, soldering techniques, and breadboarding by a Blind hobbyist.

• Raspberry VI - This site offers a wealth of information about using a Raspberry Pi computer with a vision impairment. There is also a mailing list and the mailing list archive includes a lot of helpful discussions, some of which go beyond the Raspberry Pi.

• Raspberry VI blog - This blog gets special mention because it’s full of useful articles on electronics fundamentals. It includes accessible descriptions of common chips and prototype boards, an article on soldering, and a USB multimeter tutorial.

• Raspberry Pi Resources For Blind Users - Forum thread

• Smith-Kettlewell Technical File - A collection of articles on electronics by and for Blind people, from the 1980s and early 1990s. Some of the projects will be outdated given the huge advances in available components, but the basic circuits and fundamental skills will still be useful.

• Blind soldering panel - A video of speakers discussion strategies for teaching and learning to solder without vision.

• Beginner’s guide to hobby robotics from the Blind Arduino blog

• Design of a talking module for UT61E multimeter. This was built by a blind hobbyist and has a fully accessible circuit description.

• The Blind Man’s Workshop Ashley Cox is a man with a passion for engineering, electronics, woodworking and most areas of science who happens to be completely blind. On his website he shares both software and hardware projects.

Ham radio

• HamRadioAndVision.com

• BlindHams.com

• Active-Elements.org - Includes equipment reviews and audio versions of learning materials

3D Printing

• 3D printing for BVI makers A very thorough overview of commonly-used hardware and tools oriented at blind makers who want to 3D print independently. Includes links to YouTube videos with audio instruction.

• 3D model selection, design and printing by people who are blind or have low vision - Some tips on finding models, creating models, and using a 3D printer.

• 3d-Printing-Access mailing list - A community dedicated to accessibility for Blind people using 3D printers

• 3D Printing book by Judy Dixon - This book offers an excellent introduction to 3D printing from a Blind perspective. It has a broad overview of tools and techniques to help you get started. It is available in embossed Braille or as a Word document download.

• Accessible STEM - A set of lessons on designing 3D models in OpenSCAD and printing them using PrusaSlicer and a Prusa Mini printer. Some areas are still being written but there is a lot there.

• Accessible 3D - Run by a Blind creator named Edis who designs and prints his own CAD models. His site includes a blog with great accessible tutorials on aspects of CAD and 3D printing. He also has made these two Reddit posts about his process:

  • Blind Reddit user describes how they slice and print models
  • Blind Reddit user describes their AI-based 3D printing workflow

• Getting Started with 3D Printing - Tom, who runs a business 3D printing models of buildings, describes his experiences with 3D printer accessibility

• Ka Li’s 3D Printing Guides - Ka is a Blind educator and researcher who has been 3D printing for many years. He shares guides to software and hardware on his website.

• TouchMapper - An online tool that creates 3d-printable tactile maps for the area around any address.

• Even Grounds - Accessibility consultant and avid traveller Tom Babinkszki runs a company creating 3D printed models designed specifically for other curious blind people. His blog also shares insight about tactile model design, among other topics.

• How a Blind Person Creates 3D Models in CAD - The author’s journey with OpenSCAD and CADQuery, touching on both 3D printing and CNC milling and some of the challenges he solved.

• SPEVI tactile graphics page - Lots of great resources related to tactile graphics and 3D printing

• Perkins directory of 3D printing resources

• OpenSCAD Lessons for Blind Students - By Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired

• Prowadnica Foundation forum post - A polish charity by and for Blind people that uses 3D printing. Their post offers inspiration for things to print, not much technical advice. They also have a collection of tactile models on Printables.

• Blind and Low Vision 3D Printing Facebook Group

• 3D Printing for the Blind - Blind electrical engineer Matthew Cooper shares a brief overview of how he got started with 3D printing, choosing a printer, designing models, and things to be aware of.

Woodworking

• Woodworking for the Blind - Great community and collection of articles

• The Blind Woodsman - a Blind woodworker with a YouTube channel

Graphics, design, and publishing

• blindsvg.com - A guide for blind people to create graphics by hand, coding them in SVG.

• TactileR - A library for creating tactile graphics in the R programming language

• LaTeX accessibility resources - Tools and packages when reading and typesetting LaTeX documents.

Research papers

• Making Nonvisually - Research on instructing Blind makers

• Haptic and Auditive Mesh Inspection for Blind 3D Modelers

• Tactile Schematics

• Tactile Design for Accessibility - A video talk, includes a section on schematics as well as general principles

• Is the Maker Movement Inclusive of ANYONE?: Three Accessibility Considerations to Invite Blind Makers to the Making World

• TangibleCircuits: An Interactive 3D Printed Circuit Education Tool for People with Visual Impairments

• AccessibleCircuits: Adaptive Add-On Circuit Components for People with Blindness or Low Vision

• Depicting Web images for the blind and visually impaired - A prototype process was developed to translate Web graph and map images into 3D printed models to give the blind and visually impaired access to voting and election data.

• shapeCAD: An Accessible 3D Modelling Workflow for the Blind and Visually-Impaired Via 2.5D Shape Displays - This uses a custom designed electromechanicl pin display. The hardware is open source although it looks quite expensive and complex to build.

• Developing an Equally Effective Alternate-access Plan for Vision-impaired and Blind Students Enrolled in Mechanical Engineering Technology Courses

• TDraw: A Computer-based Tactile Drawing Tool for Blind People

• Talking Multimeter and LCR Meter: Accessible for Blind or Visually Impaired Persons(VIPs)

• Usability Evaluation of Tactile Map Symbols Across Three Production Technologies

• An Analysis and Proposal of 3D Printing Applications for the Visually Impaired

Miscellaneous

• Davis Tech Trains Blind Students in CNC Machining

• Independence Science - Makers of talking laboratory test equipment. Most of their offerings seem to be in the institutional, rather than hobbyist price range.