A team of computer science students from BITS Pilani‘s Goa campus, led by Sanskriti Dawle and Aman Srivastava, wanted to help visually impaired people in India by teaching them Braille. However, most Braille teaching machines cost in excess of £4000. So, they set about creating something that would solve the problem but at a fraction of the price. They took a Raspberry Pi and wrote some Python script which reads in speech, interprets it into text and then produces the Braille pattern of each letter on a set of 6 pegs that push up or pull down as necessary. The system is called Project Mudra and you can read more about it here. The system costs about £150 per unit – an amazing saving for something which does the job of the more expensive units almost as well.

This is a truly jaw-dropping project that really shows what the Pi can do to help developing countries.