Archived Newsletter

Recently, we were contacted by Emily Schlenker, a blind pre-medical student at Wichita State University. She was born without sight, but that hasn’t slowed down her fascination with organic chemistry. For us at Thinkable, it’s stories like hers that drive our passion for tactile graphics. We are excited to share it with you as end-of-year inspiration.

Blind ‘visual learner’

Emily says: “The TactiPad has been instrumental in my transformation from a fearful and anxious student who lacked the confidence to speak up in class or go to my professor in private with my questions, into a strong participant in lectures and study sessions who is often right on the money with the answers.”

Another intriguing aspect of her story is that she describes herself as being a visual learner, regardless of her visual impairment. “My brain thrives on pictures,” she says, “my mental acuity and ability to do organic chemistry in my head from memory has improved exponentially. If I can draw, I can remember.”

Aid for assignments and exams

Despite the initially steep learning curve, she has rapidly become very skilful in making tactile drawings that enable her to get the most out of her participation in the academic world. “After working with the TactiPad, I am now confident enough to present my pictures as visual aids for my questions or as parts of assignments. Hearts and happy faces are alright, but this thing is life altering. Without it, I would not be preparing to take the MCAT exam next summer.”

For us, it certainly was heart-warming to read Emily’s personal story. If you too have experience with the Thinkable products that you wish to share with other (future) users, do not hesitate to contact us!

We wish you a wonderful holiday season from us at Thinkable and all the best in 2018!

In recent months, we have made major progress again in the development of the Motorised Drawing Arm (MDA). In this newsletter, we are excited to share the latest developments. We also invite you to come and see the device in action at the TifloInnova exhibition on 17-19 November in Madrid (for further details, see below).

MDA prototype 2

The first important improvement in the second MDA prototype is the use of a new type of motor that applies pressure to the pen. The new setup will ensure that the pen can move over the height of the 8 TactiPad buttons irrespective of their positions. Also, the new motor better accommodates the slight variations in height across the TactiPad. This results in a consistent quality of the tactile lines across the entire drawing surface.

In the following video, you can see the remarkable speed and precision of the new prototype is if you selected an image from the catalog and pressed the sketch button:

USB connection and WIFI access

Besides connecting the MDA via USB directly to the computer, it can now also be connected wirelessly via Wifi because of the addition of a Raspberry Pi to the system. This way, it can even be operated using your mobile phone or any other mobile device! This offers brand new ways for students and teachers to work with educational graphics.

MDA catalog

Currently, the TactileView software includes a catalog with thousands of ready-to-use tactile graphics. We plan to set up a similar catalog of images specifically for sketching on the MDA.
You can already visit our demo version of the MDA catalog, which includes a first set of designs as an example. In the future, you can directly drive your MDA from this online catalog from any browser on your pc, mobile phone or tablet.

Your suggestions

We are very interested to hear which content you would like to produce when you would have an MDA on your desk. When visiting the MDA catalog page, we welcome you to think about which categories or which specific pre-made graphics you would like to find in the catalog. Or even better, send us your ideas or images that you would like to see produced on the MDA!

TifloInnova exhibition in Madrid

Jaap and Niels from Thinkable will be present at the TifloInnova exhibition, giving a hands-on demonstration of the TactiPad drawing board, TactileView software and of course the new MDA prototype.

The exhibition is held from 17-19 November in the ONCE Sports and Cultural Centre in the north of Madrid. Admission is free for all visitors. When you are there, we invite you to pay us a visit in booth 4. For further details, see the TifloInnova website.

In recent months, we have made major progress again in the development of the Motorised Drawing Arm (MDA). In this newsletter, we are excited to share the latest developments. We also invite you to come and see the device in action at the TifloInnova exhibition on 17-19 November in Madrid (for further details, see below).

MDA prototype 2

The first important improvement in the second MDA prototype is the use of a new type of motor that applies pressure to the pen. The new setup will ensure that the pen can move over the height of the 8 TactiPad buttons irrespective of their positions. Also, the new motor better accommodates the slight variations in height across the TactiPad. This results in a consistent quality of the tactile lines across the entire drawing surface.

In the following video, you can see the remarkable speed and precision of the new prototype is if you selected an image from the catalog and pressed the sketch button:

USB connection and WIFI access

Besides connecting the MDA via USB directly to the computer, it can now also be connected wirelessly via Wifi because of the addition of a Raspberry Pi to the system. This way, it can even be operated using your mobile phone or any other mobile device! This offers brand new ways for students and teachers to work with educational graphics.

MDA catalog

Currently, the TactileView software includes a catalog with thousands of ready-to-use tactile graphics. We plan to set up a similar catalog of images specifically for sketching on the MDA.
You can already visit our demo version of the MDA catalog, which includes a first set of designs as an example. In the future, you can directly drive your MDA from this online catalog from any browser on your pc, mobile phone or tablet.

Your suggestions

We are very interested to hear which content you would like to produce when you would have an MDA on your desk. When visiting the MDA catalog page, we welcome you to think about which categories or which specific pre-made graphics you would like to find in the catalog. Or even better, send us your ideas or images that you would like to see produced on the MDA!

TifloInnova exhibition in Madrid

Jaap and Niels from Thinkable will be present at the TifloInnova exhibition, giving a hands-on demonstration of the TactiPad drawing board, TactileView software and of course the new MDA prototype.

The exhibition is held from 17-19 November in the ONCE Sports and Cultural Centre in the north of Madrid. Admission is free for all visitors. When you are there, we invite you to pay us a visit in booth 4. For further details, see the TifloInnova website.

For us, the last few months have seen a busy schedule of visiting conferences and exhibitions, bringing back a wealth of new ideas and contacts. Luckily, we were able to let all the new inspiration sink in during our summer holidays.

And what better way to prepare a vacation than with a series of useful tactile graphics! By making these images accessible as tactile graphics with TactileView, Jaap was able to have the same fun in anticipation of the trip as the rest of his family.

Map of the Mediterranean Sea between Italy and Spain

New tutorial: Editing challenging images

The production of these maps and images is a great example of how the new curved shape drawing tool in the upcoming version of TactileView will provide an effective tool for converting challenging images to tactile graphics. You can find the new tutorial in the online TactileView manual.

Additional images during the trip

Of course, numerous useful tactile images could be prepared for such a trip. For example: floor plans, menus and other images related to the cruise ship; street plans and images of the most interesting landmarks in the cities in which the ship will anchor, etc. Therefore we also brought the TactiPad drawing board with us during the trip, so my family members could show me in an instant what was relevant during each stage of the journey.

Meet us at the ICEVI conference, held from July 2nd to Friday 7th in Bruges, Belgium.
Just outside the beautiful city centre, we will come together with over 200 experts from the fields of education and rehabilitation.

Tactile map of Bruges

The schedule leaves enough free time for an exploration of the city of Bruges. Whether you wish to visit the famous historic sites or simply enjoy a refreshing drink after an engaging conference day, a tactile map may come in very handy. We have prepared an A3 size tactile street map on the Index embosser that you can pick up at our table.

At the ICEVI, we will demonstrate numerous solutions for tactile graphics that are particularly suitable for education and rehabilitation: the TactileView software, the TactiPad drawing board, the prototype of the motorised drawing arm (MDA) and a prototype of a braille matrix device.
The next opportunity to see our range of Thinkable products is the Sight Village conference in Birmingham, July 18th and 19th.

We recently returned from the very inspiring Tactile Reading conference. Over 340 professionals came together in Stockholm to share their ideas about tactile reading and writing.

Now, freshly returned from Sweden, we are preparing to meet you at SightCity next week in Frankfurt. From 3 to 5 May you can find us in booth D1, right at the entrance of the main hall.

At the exhibition, we will demonstrate the second version of the motorised drawing arm (MDA) and the new math and science tools for the GraphGrid, which were both met with great enthusiasm in Stockholm. In the video link below, you can already get a view of the impressive speed with which the MDA can produce a TactileView design on the TactiPad drawing board.

With the new year in full swing, the first in the list of global assistive technology conferences of 2017 is about to start. Visit the ATIA in Orlando, Florida on January 18-20 to get a hands-on demonstration of the TactiPad drawing board and TactileView tactile graphics software.

In booth 800, Irie-AT will be happy to demonstrate the reasons why both TactileView and the TactiPad are met with ever increasing enthusiasm by visually impaired users and professionals alike.

Additions and improvements in TactileView version 2.500

Hopefully you can enjoy some of the winter sun in Florida. Meanwhile, we will continue to work hard on putting the finishing touches to TactileView version 2.500 for you to download once you have returned home. To discover the changes and improvements, you can already check the release notes and what’s new page on our website.

With the end of the year fast approaching, we hope you can look forward to enjoying the holiday season.

For us, the end of the year resembles the curve of a parabola. Things will gradually slow down for a well-earned rest, until midnight on the 31st of December when everyone is holding their breath to welcome 2017. In the new year, everything will be picking up speed once more with renewed enthusiasm.

Plans for 2017

We are pleased to let you know that the GraphGrid accessory set for the TactiPad has been extended with three additional tools. These allow you to draw perfect parabolas, hyperbolas and concave or convex lenses.

But more on that later – for now, we want to wish you a merry Christmas and the happiest of New Years!