The Etch A Sketch and Spirograph are some of the most successful toys available for introducing young people to the world of art. However, there are not many touch friendly equivalents for those searching for a tactile based option that would offer a similar experience to those classic toys. Daniel Seth Lubiner, Founder and CEO, and Brian K. Edwards, President and Chief Operating Officer, of TouchPad Pro Assistive Technology are out to change that by creating new products like the Braille Doodle and the TouchPad Pro. Hear the pair tell J.J. how these products were inspired by Braille students, transformed into an Indi Gogo project and how that process is leading to eventual product distribution. To learn more about the TouchPad Pro, visit this link to hear an audio described video of the introductory model. Additionally, to learn more about the company, visit the TouchPad Pro Assistive Technology website
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Hide transcriptTranscribed by Grecia Ramirez
Direct from Orlando, Florida; St. Louis; Las Vegas; Dallas; Sparks, Nevada – everywhere – it’s Blindbargains.com virtual Exhibit Hall coverage brought to you by AFB AccessWorld.
For the latest news and accessibility information on mainstream and access technology; Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon offerings; access technology; book reviews; and mobile apps and how they can enhance entertainment, education, and employment, log onto AccessWorld, the American Foundation for the Blind's free monthly online technology magazine. www.AFB.org/AW.
Now, here’s J.J. Meddaugh
J.J. MEDDAUGH: Blind Bargains Cast. We’re kind of doing -- it’s conference coverage, but it’s all virtual, and – you know, but we’re still finding new products all around the country and beyond, including some new Braille-related and tactile products. Daniel Lubiner is the CEO and founder of Touchpad pro Assistive Technology. Brian Edwards is the COO, also the same company, and they’re here to tell us about some new products on the horizon. Guys, welcome to the podcast.
BRIAN EDWARDS: Thank you very much. Appreciate it, being here.
DANIEL LUBINER: Thank you so much.
JM: And just so you know, that was Brian you heard first followed by Daniel.
So – we have a couple of really cool products, but one that’s a lot more low-tech called the BrailleDoodle. Before we even get to that, Daniel, tell me a little bit about your background. You’re a teacher, and it’s kind of got you inspired to get into this industry.
DL: Sure. So I’m Daniel Lubiner. I’ve been a teacher – a special ED teacher – for almost 25 years. And about five years ago, I started teaching the blind and low-vision in The Bronx. And at first, I was, like, a little nervous when they told me I was going to have to do this job. I was really thrown in – I didn’t know what I was going to do. You know, oh, well, you got to do art. But very quickly, the students got my mind at ease. They -- and they were quickly inspiring me just because of the way they experienced life; the way they are; just, always smiling, optimistic – you know. It was just a – it’s a beautiful experience. And learning about art and learning about experiencing art the way the blind and low-vision do inspired me to start creating these products and start, you know, just scribbling out things. And then that led to preparing patents. And then Covid hit, and, you know, that really inspired the BrailleDoodle.
So it was really tough because all my students went home. They didn’t have anything. They didn’t have, like, stuff at home, a lot of them. You know, many of them are from Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx –
JM: Right.
DL: -- and they don’t have money to go on Amazon and buy a bunch of art supplies. So we’re really kind of stuck. And then I asked the Braille teacher – because I was wondering, like, how are they teaching Braille? And she was like, it’s really difficult. In fact, they stopped Braille instruction for some of the students. Anybody knew a little Braille, they just cut it off because they had to teach the kids who didn’t have any Braille. You know, so they spent more time with them.
JM: Right, which –
DL: You know –
JM: -- which brings us to the Doodle. Actually, we’ll talk about that in just a second. Before we do that, Brian, how did you get involved?
BE: Well, I mean, this is funny because in terms of an origin story with Daniel and myself, you kind of have to go back to high school because we actually attended high school together. And, you know, I kind of shared this story before, but to be very quick about it is that, you know, after you graduate, you tend to sometimes lose contact with people, and everybody goes to college, and you start, you know, getting married and having kids, et cetera. Well, when you have the advent of social media and Facebook, you know, we circle back, we stay in touch with each other, and then just this last summer, Daniel advised me about what he was looking to do as far as endeavors for the last five years of trying to get some products into the marketplace for the blind and low-vision community. And, not to steal too much of the thunder that I think that Daniel will talk about in this, but with my background in business -- and in sales in particular over the last 20 plus years -- I’ve actually sold hardware, software products, and in the last 12 years more specifically, software.
But we’re talking about products that are manufactured, so how do we actually get more experience in a brain trust in place to get these products to fruition and get this company off the ground? And that’s where Daniel and I came across, you know, a lot of subject matter experts in the blind and low-vision community that he knew and people that I knew from the business community, creating an advisory board, and we have currently, and then moving the whole process forward and getting the startup fund.
JM: That’s awesome. And there’s a lot of products on the horizon that you guys have been talking about that could be developed in the future, but it all starts, Daniel, with the BrailleDoodle. What exactly is that?
DL: Okay. So to describe the BrailleDoodle, it’s like a toy. It was based on a toy that’s available on Amazon that has, like, all these marbles that pop up when you have, like, a magnetic stylus. You know, so if you picture, like, a plastic rectangle about the size of a laptop, you know, we want to make ours, like, really high-quality, and of course, have the Braille component. So picture about the size of a laptop, and then the top is covered with hundreds and hundreds of holes. And inside each of the holes is some metallic or magnetic element that will be pulled up one at a time as you’re going over it with a magnetic stylus. So you have like a magnetic pen that goes over it, and it pulls it up so you could feel things as you draw. So if you draw a circle, you could feel the circle as you go along. And the tricky part is to be able to have it so you could touch it without the things falling down.
JM: Right.
DL: You know, so it has to just have the – just amount of pressure so you’d be able to touch it. But then if you want to erase it, you’d just be able to push it down a little harder, and it will go down. And then, the innovation came that we said, we’re going to have a Braille sleeve. So the Braille sleeve will just slide over the -- right over the BrailleDoodle, and then the surface will be covered with dozens of rectangular square – rectangular squares, that’s good.
JM: Right. Yes.
DL: Okay. It will be covered with dozens of rectangles, 2 by 6, just for the basic Braille of 2 by 6 and –
JM: 2 by 3, you mean?
DL: I mean 2 by 3.
JM: -- for one – right – for one Braille cell, yeah. Cool.
DL: 2 by 3. Yeah.
JM: Well, unless it’s two cells. Then it would be 2 by 6.
DL: So at least one will be a Braille cell. Yeah. So that way, you could, you know, you could teach Braille over Zoom, you know. You could, you know, have the student point the camera at the BrailleDoodle, and you could say, okay. Move up to, you know, the upper left-hand corner. Can you feel that rectangle, upper left-hand corner, so we’ll start there. Can you feel the holes? Okay. There’s six holes. We’re going to give each one a number, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Okay. Pick up that number 1. Okay. Can you feel that number 1? All right. That’s an A. A.
JM: Woohoo.
DL: You know, so you’d be able -- yeah. Woohoo. So you’d be able to do that and also, you know – we’re also thinking about what other types of sleeves we can make, like sleeves with a guide that already allows you just to do the alphabet or to feel the alphabet and then copy the alphabet as you’re going along.
BE: One of the things I wanted to add, just to conjure a little bit of description, because it is kind of hard to do and actually visualize. So one place -- if you are sighted, you can go to our website. We also have a video description for a simulation of the actual product.
But it – the closest example we can usually give is an Etch a Sketch. And it was one of our favorite toys and one of the most beloved toys of our generation. You know, we’re aging ourselves a little bit. But in terms of the simplification, because it is a little bit more complex than just a toy. It’s just an easier way to describe the repeatability and the user aspect of going over and over again and using these tactile pins. There was a very heavy-handed engineering pieces in place that kind of complicates the manufacture.
But once again, with the partnerships that we do have with Boston Engineering as the company who is heading up the R&D for this project with us, is that there is a lot of work that has to go into place to make sure that those magnetic pins, as Daniel mentioned before, can stay in place, and we can repeat that action over and over again. It can’t get oil on your nose. If you happen to drop the item, will the pins stay in place? If you get food, if you spill something on it -- these are the small, little aspects of engineering that are very important to us in terms of being able to make sure that our users can use this over and over and time and time again.
JM: Yeah. Especially when you’re working with a product that’s going to be used a lot by kids. It needs to withstand the rigor that kids are going to put through –
DL: Yeah. This product needs –
JM: -- a product like that.
BE: Exactly.
DL: -- needs to be tough.
BE: Exactly.
JM: Yeah. You want it to – you want it to last for a bit. So, you can –
BE: Right.
JM: -- use this – just to unpack this a little bit, you can use the Doodle – and I know you’re still finalizing the design, but you can use it with the Braille sleeve on or off; correct?
BE: That is correct.
DL: Correct.
JM: Okay.
DL: So with the Braille sleeve off, it becomes a drawing tool, a tactile drawing tool.
JM: Yeah. And to continue along that line, too, we’ve discussed this a little bit, but I think it’s kind of important to talk about why you feel it’s important to use a stylus to draw as opposed to just using your finger.
DL: You know, that’s an excellent question, and -- because I’ve actually, in the last five years researching what’s out there, it seems like there’s a lot of things coming out, and they’re trying to make a tactile display where you can use your finger to draw with. But when I see my students, when I talk with my students about the way they create art, they get down into the art, you know? Especially those with low-vision. They don’t want a magnifying glass, they want to use both hands; they want to get their noses dirty, you know.
JM: Yeah.
DL: They feel so close to the work that they’re doing. But the point is – is whenever I talk with people, they want to use two hands, not just one. So they use one hand to draw something and use the other hand to feel what they’re drawing. You know, so that’s why having a stylus, I think, is so important.
BE: And one of the key points that I would add with the stylus portion is that we know that there are other Braille toys and tools in the market, but some of those actually are just single pegs that come apart. And if you’re blind and low-vision, if you drop it, or you could easily misplace it. The stylus that we’re talking about with the BrailleDoodle is attached by a cord. So it’s not something that – even if you actually drop it out of your hand, it’s attached to the unit. You just grab the cord and be able to start working and styling again.
JM: Okay. So it’s an entirely manual unit; right? As far as because it’s all just magnets and the technology in it. Is there some sort of lever or something that would cause all of the magnets to release?
BE: Yes. There is the release mechanism that allows you to pretty much start over again, you know, in terms of whatever you’re working on or drawing or whatever the Braille sleeve –
DL: Yeah. Well, we’re still working on that as well.
JM: Right.
DL: You know, we want to be able to erase one dot at a time too. So if you’re, like, practicing a Braille cell and you have brought up three dots, you want to be able to push down one of them that you didn’t intend to pull up.
JM: Makes sense.
DL: And just like on the video -- that is voice-described, so anybody could click on the video. There is a boy who’s drawing a car, and he draws out the car, he’s feeling it as he’s drawing it out. And then he uses his finger to push down some of the tactile elements, so he could just separate like two windows just with the – really cool.
JM: So the pins are such that they will stay up when you move your finger around to feel the graphic Braille, whatever you drew, but if you push enough force on them, then they would theoretically go down.
BE: Right.
DL: Exactly.
BE: That is correct.
JM: Okay. Which leads us, I guess, to, you know, kind of figuring out getting this product to market. Brian, you helped launch an Indiegogo trying to raise money and didn’t raise all the money, but came pretty close to the goal. So where does that leave you? What’s the timeline for getting this to market?
BE: Well, one of the things that we wanted to do with the Indiegogo is even though we didn’t hit the target market, it was also the time of the launch. I mean, this – we did this right before Christmas.
JM: Yeah.
BE: So we had so much excitement and so much input. And for the people who did give, it did allow us to be able to take some of the ancillary costs regarding legal, et cetera, to be able to start the project movement forward, and also the company. So I’m actually very excited from the response that we did receive from people. There is a true desire to have this as soon as possible. And all things being equal, depending upon what we can do for timelines with R&D, this could be available within six to eight months.
JM: Very cool. Have you guys decided on the final design as far as how many – what would the pin array would be, how many rows, how many columns? Is that something you’re still figuring out?
DL: That, we’ll have to figure out, you know. We want to make it as tight as possible.
JM: Right.
DL: Because we don’t want our Braille cells to be too jumbo to get all that stuff in there, there might have to be springs, like, in between each hole. So we’ll have to see.
BE: Yeah. That’s TBD as far as the engineering piece. And those are the things we’re working with Boston Engineering on. Like I said, it seems very, very easy to create and really not that complex of a device. But for what we’re trying to do, the scope and the way that we describe it right now, there is a lot of engineering that goes behind – that goes on behind the scenes to get that produced.
JM: Yeah. Absolutely. The product design for even something simple like this -- it’s low-tech -- it still takes many months or years just to perfect it. Absolutely.
BE: Exactly. Exactly.
DL: Yeah. But we’re hoping, because we lined it up – it’s all lined up, we’re out there looking for investors and, you know, we’re doing different routes, possibly foundations and other things, you know. So we’re looking through different avenues. But even for investors, around 800 thousand, we could get this out in only six months. And we’re pretty sure we could hit that mark. And that would be great, because I’m kind of enthusiastic about getting this out quickly because, again, I don’t know if we’re going to have in-class school next year. I don’t know if people around the country, kids around the country are going to be able to go to school.
JM: Yeah.
DL: And I think the Covid thing also pointed out something that happens in rural areas all over the country, all over the world, really, is there’s not enough instructors in certain areas. There’s, like, not enough TVI’s. Not enough people who teach Braille. So something like this would allow people to learn Braille right over Zoom.
JM: Absolutely. And I obviously love the lower cost nature. Have you come up to a final cost yet? Are you still working on that?
DL: We’re still working on that, but we really want to come well under a hundred dollars. And that’ll be part of the challenge of Boston Engineering, is to keep that cost down. So we want to keep it down – you know, we’re trying in and around 75 dollars. It’s been fluctuating -- I mean some of the places I’ve talked to said, oh, you can do like a hundred and twenty. You could do a hundred and fifty for something like this. Just because of the stuff that’s out there. But I really want to keep it down low because one of the things that I pictured for this is something – it’s something that could be kind of mass-produced over – from China, if necessary. And that way, we could have it to low price. That way, instead of buying it for a couple kids, we could buy it for all the kids.
JM: Sure.
DL: So all of them could have them.
JM: Sure.
BE: And one thing I wanted to point out also is that, you know, as far as the idea and the challenges that Covid brings to children right now who are remote learning or blind and low-vision, this product was needed even without the pandemic being in play right now. The other tools that children are using and blind and low-vision with a TVI at their disposal aren’t really comparable to this really basic tool they could use for remote learning as well as in-class teaching. Daniel could speak to that more than I could, but even when they go back to the classroom, this is something that every classroom would be able to use and need as soon as possible.
JM: Absolutely. No. Yeah. I can definitely see the application for this. You know, when I was a kid, we had the very low-tech version – you know, you’d have a piece of paper and a screen board, and, you know, that’s pretty much what you had.
DL: Mm-hmm.
JM: You’d clip down the page and you could draw and you could feel what you drew, but, of course, if you wanted to change anything, you would need a new piece of paper and you started all over. And it doesn’t help with the Braille learning aspect –
DL: Yeah.
JM: -- which is in a whole additional thing that you have going on here?
DL: Did you – how did you learn Braille? I’m just wondering.
JM: Yeah. I mean, I learned when I was young. Had a regular Perkins brailler, but obviously, you know, those are a lot more expensive than this. And the Perkins is – I don’t want to discount it. It’s an -- obviously an amazing piece of technology, and eventually, people need to learn how to use them, but, you know, this is a perfect gateway to that, I think. And kind of just learning how to form Braille. And then, just – so many other things like shapes, print letters. There’s a lot of other things that you – if you don’t feel it tactilely, you maybe never understand what something feels like or looks like.
DL: Right.
BE: And that level of description that you just gave is literally the type of feedback that we’ve received from TVI’s and other blind and low-vision people who do know and learn Braille earlier on like yourself. If you had the ability to have more of a hands-on feel for these shapes and – actually, the appreciation of art beyond just the Braille literacy piece, that’s very, very important.
JM: Yeah. Anything that can help further Braille literacy is a huge thing. So let’s actually spend a couple minutes before we go talking about, perhaps, the future direction of the company including a thing you’re calling the TouchPad Pro. Tell me a little bit about what you’re envisioning for that.
DL: Okay. The TouchPad Pro was actually, you know, a dream of mine for many years now. That – this is where it all came from. The BrailleDoodle was like a scaled-down, mechanical, less expensive version, much less. But when we talk about the TouchPad Pro, we’re talking about, like, the iPad for the blind. You know, it will have 2400 pins that will raise and lower to different heights to form contours of images, not just outlines of images, which some people are going after in the tactile displays. But we want actual contours. In other words, you could take a selfie with the 3D camera facing you, and the pins would come up and form your face so you could feel your forehead, your nose, your lips, the cheeks. And that’s really what we’re going for.
And one of the things that I saw lacking too when I was looking at a lot of the assistive technology that’s out there is there wasn’t a lot for, you know -- 80 percent of my students are on some spectrum of blindness. And it’s not – you know. So to have this to be full color, you know, to be bright, bright colors. So, you know, those with low-vision –
JM: Right.
DL: -- can also touch and feel and, you know, see what they can see and, you know, have a full integrated, multisensory experience.
JM: It’s often overlooked lack of – for lack of a better pun. But it really is.
DL: Yeah.
JM: I mean, to give you the full experience, you know, and it also just brings – makes your market bigger and also brings – you know, perhaps helps bring the price down a little more as well. So I assume, just like the other one, you’d be able to do both graphics and Braille? I know that you're still – this is much more of a long game, so you probably don’t have as many concrete details.
DL: Actually, I have a pretty good vision of –
JM: Mm-hmm.
DL: -- what I want with this. And I want it to be able – they call it, like, the Holy Braille, you know, because –
JM: Right.
DL: -- they’ve been searching and trying to find something that will do this for many years. But I want this to be able to provide a full page of Braille, and also be able to be a notetaker: So a keyboarded – Perkins-style keyboarded could pop out of the bottom of the screen, and you would just start typing away, and you’ll get four or five lines of Braille. Or if the keyboard’s gone, it could be like an Ereader. And also, the art piece, of course. You know, it will come with a stylus that is electronically connected so you’ll be able to raise the pins to different heights as you draw and feel as you draw. So you could do different designs and basically sculpt on the device.
JM: Wow. That’s quite impressive. What – the potential of that. So obviously, there’s a few different companies that are headed down this road. Dot is headed in this direction, Orbit and maybe – and many others as well, Bristol with the Canute. What do you see as the differentiator as far as the TouchPad Pro versus other full-page tablets that are – mind you, none of them are out yet, but –
DL: Right.
JM: -- you know, others who are working on that?
DL: Uh-huh. Well, again, the full color aspect is –
JM: Sure.
DL: -- you know, one thing. The other thing is the drawing capability with a stylus. Again – you know, from what I see, they’re just drawing with their finger. In fact it was so important that I put it – that’s on the headline of the patent. It’s with an electronically attached stylus. So, you know, because I just feel like that was, like, a starting point for it.
JM: Yeah.
DL: And also, you know, because of the different levels and everything that will be able to do, we’re also talking about maps and GPS, perhaps walking along, perhaps a hand-held version. Perhaps putting these on kiosks and airports and subways.
JM: Sure.
DL: Malls.
BE: Don’t tell him too much, Daniel.
DL: Okay. Right. Right.
BE: Without giving --
DL: Yeah. We’re going to have to have -- everybody listening has to sign an NDA.
BE: Yeah. Yeah. Basically. So let’s just say, Jason, to that point, is that there are a broad scope of revolutionary integrated synergies that we have in mind for what our product will do compared to the others that are in development as well. And it will have a global impact and footprint like no other. And that’s the secret sauce that I kind of want us to hold onto. But Daniel did mention just the tip of the iceberg –
JM: Sure.
BE: -- with some of the other applications that we have in mind for the device.
JM: Cool, cool. Well, we’ll databank that for later. I know – I’m sure we’ll come back when that comes closer to release. But this year, we’re looking for the Doodle which is very exciting as well. And the video you mentioned, we’ll put links up to that to the show notes over at blindbargains.com, so if anyone wants to go watch that video, just head there, and we will have it, of course, up in the episode for this podcast. Let me have you guys also, before we go, give your contact information. If people want to get feedback, if they want to give some ideas, if they’re a rich investor who wants to talk to you, how can they get ahold of you guys?
DL: Yeah. Right. Well, if you just go to TouchPad Pro assistive technology, which is just the initials, tppat.com. So T, double P, A-T dot com. So there’s a contact us right at the bottom of the page where something pops up so you can also just add your Email to the list, and – but please reach out and contact us and let us know. I love to hear feedback. I love to hear new ideas of what is possible, you know, what more people would like to see or experience in this because that’s where this all came from, okay? This all came from my co-designers, my students. Everything came from them. Like, talking to them, asking them what is – what do you want? What do you – what do you – what would be the ideal of this? You know, so I have to give all credit where credit is due there.
Well thank you so much, actually. You know, this has been wonderful.
JM: Yeah. Thank you so much.
BE: Yes. Thank you, Jason.
JM: Really do appreciate it. And thank you so much for coming on.
DL: Look forward to talking to you more.
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Joe Steinkamp is no stranger to the world of technology, having been a user of video magnification and blindness related electronic devices since 1979. Joe has worked in radio, retail management and Vocational Rehabilitation for blind and low vision individuals in Texas. He has been writing about the A.T. Industry for 15 years and podcasting about it for almost a decade.
