Braille with Artificial Muscles

This sounds interesting, but I wonder if you could expand on your idea a bit. I get the impression that you want to produce what amounts to an erasable and rewritable page of Braille text. I can think of a few ways of doing that, but from the little that I can find on the internet there is nothing like a ready-made actuator in electroactive polymer which can do that job. And how are the visually impaired going to send messages? Peter Harris

Hello, yoyo.

While I have almost no experience in this sort of hardware, I am intrigued enough by your plea to skim around the web a little bit. Is this the type of thing you seek?

http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?DocumentID=3652&SectionID=7&SubTopicID=97&TopicID=330

I could find no reference to 'electroactive polymer' in their online data. However, this is a technology that, by appearance, should enable people with visual impairments to join us here at CR4 (should they choose to join this madness).

Not too sure about cheaply... these types of things range from about $2,000 to $10,400 USD, according to my poking around.

If these are the refreshable Braille displays you are thinking of, this website has a number of resources available, and I would hope you might find cooperation therein.

Good luck in your studies...

Thanks for the help. The link you gave me is the current version of this technology and they use little pins and motors to raise and lower the bumps. Future models however, are going to be a full screen reader that uses electrical charges to operate the bumps. It will be thinner and will also be available for less money because they will not need any motors or wires. Thanks again for the feedback.