The Bluetooth controlled Mini Braille Telegraph was designed as a final project submission for ECE 4180 Embedded Systems Design course with Dr. Hamblen. Along with 3 teammates, I designed a printer that receives characters/strings in English and prints out the corresponding Braille characters on a Braille tape.

The Adafruit BLE Bluetooth app is used to send characters that are displayed on the uLCD and read out loud through a speaker using an EMIC2 text-to-audio chip. A linear actuator is used to position the stylus that is used to create the embossed dots for Braille characters. Once the stylus is correctly oriented, a solenoid is used to push the Braille tape up so as to create an indentation. Finally, a stepper motor is used to unwind the tape to facilitate the printing of the next character.

Mini-Braille Printer and all the internal electronics.

Here is a video showing the working printer. This tutorial provides a detailed description of the project.