
Lego to pilot audio and Braille instructions powered by speech synthesis - adrian_mrd
https://www.lego.com/en-gb/aboutus/news-room/2019/august/audio-and-braille-instructions/
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jvanderbot
I am so curious as to what a fully blind person would find _most_ enjoyable
about legos.

Does the texture or shape hold special meaning?

I imagine hoding a model car in your hands is like "zooming out" for a blind
person, enabling a contextual perspective that they cant get when interacting
with the real world thing.

I imagine that scaling up to a whole new understanding of the world. Imagine
the first lego set of the space shuttle a blind space enthusiast builds, and
the immense set of knowledge that they cant otherwise get.

What a great idea to make this easier for them!

~~~
ndarilek
They're just so easy to work with, and while directions are great, they're not
strictly necessary to at least make something. Compare that with the handful
of model cars I tried playing with, which had so many screws/bolts/gears that
weren't at all interchangeable. I wanted to play with those, but doing so
required me borrowing someone's eyeballs to get the thing built, and that
deprived me of some of the fun of having a toy like that.

As an adult, I derive similar pleasure from woodworking and other crafts, but
it's challenging enough to do that as a normal kid, to say nothing of also
contending with folks who can't/don't support you because they don't know how
or are too afraid. So, in the end, you have either legos or the simplest snap-
together models to satisfy your building urge.

Even as an adult, I have a soft spot in my heart for legos. I've considered
using them as snap-together cases for custom electronics projects, but haven't
delved into them enough to know what sets would work best for that
application. And as much as I like them, I really don't want to buy some
castle or spaceship set just to build custom cases for my DIY doorbell or
assorted RPIs. :)

~~~
ryanmercer
If you do want to get into DIY stuff with lego, if you have someone you can
describe what you want to they can make it in Studio, building software that
you can find at
[https://studio.bricklink.com/v2/build/studio.page](https://studio.bricklink.com/v2/build/studio.page)

You can then have them export the element list and you can buy the individual
elements from the seller or sellers of your choice on
[https://www.bricklink.com](https://www.bricklink.com) on the secondary market
and then you don't need to buy an entire set.

You could also just have someone sit down and help you buy a bunch of common
elements in common colors from one or more of the larger sellers so you can
have a nice little inventory of pieces.

------
ryanmercer
Hmmm, they'll have to start designing sets differently then. You'll often have
the same element in more than one colour in a given set. Obviousl the colour
won't matter to the person constructing it but to anyone viewing it, it
certainly would.

Modified elements would probably need to be fairly descriptive:

\- "place the 1x2 with the cylindrical protrusion"

\- "place the 1x2 with the cylindrical depression".

\- "place the 1x2 so that the rectangular textured masonry surface is facing
out"

~~~
cheschire
The instructions start by telling you to have a sighted person help you sort
the pieces by color.

[https://legoaudioinstructions.com/lego-11001-classic-
mobile/](https://legoaudioinstructions.com/lego-11001-classic-mobile/)

~~~
ryanmercer
... but... might as well just have them sit there and hand you the next piece.
Hrmmm, oh well it's a start.

~~~
ndarilek
Sometimes it's about taking what you can get, even if the solution is only
partial. As a blind woodworker, I can't route a pattern laid out on flimsy
material, but make a wooden template and I'm fine. So for more complex
projects, we'll have someone make us a template we can trace, but we're still
doing most of the work.

Granted, I'd love a solution that doesn't require sighted help. For this case,
some sort of color identifier app might help. Given that Lego's color palet
probably doesn't span too widely, this would probably be an easy weekend
project.

~~~
ryanmercer
That's actually a good solution. Color detection is relatively easy, given it
has been used for paint mixing for a long time.

The current lego pallet should still be at 51 colors, there might be issue
with clear elements but for the most part they'll be significantly different
than the other elements in a set being things like windows, windshields and
cockpits. Also in a given set you are unlikely to have many, if any, of the
same elements in similar shades that might get confused by an app.

The app would be useful for those that can see too just for listing elements
on secondary markets like Brick Link.

It is far beyond my means but as an adult fan of lego I definitely see value
in it.

