A New Game Device Using Body-Braille for Visually Impaired People

Abstract

During the last five years, we have been developing the Body-Braille system which uses 6 vibration motors corresponding to the units of Braille. Disabled people can wear this system and sense Braille characters by vibration patterns on any part of the body. We have performed several experiments in which disabled people could get needed support for daily life through Body-Braille. Since we are developing a new type of equipment, we chose to make one of its main applications a game. Our new equipment is so small that it is very easy to carry it anywhere, such as on a train. Disabled people can play a game using the equipment while traveling around. The software of the game application employs a table based structure so that anyone can create a new game application with very little programming work. As a result, we have successfully developed the software for game creation.