Last updated: July 9, 2010
The 6dot Braille labeler was featured in a TV report by ivanhoe.com, which features "Discoveries and Breakthroughs in Science."
We are running again for the NAU Grant for Change. This award has a people's choice component, and we hope you will vote for us. The Braille Labeler did not win the grant last year, but this year we feel we are more competitive with a more developed and directed project.
NAU, who makes sustainable urban and outdoor apparel, is holding its second annual Grant for Change, in order to support those who instigate lasting, positive change in their communities. The theme this year is Design. We feel that the labeler is a perfect example of good design. Our team has worked hard, incorporating much user testing and advice, to create the labeler prototype that exists today.
We hope that you will support us in the Grant for Change. To do so, you must go to 6dot's page on the NAU site, and click the "your current vote" checkbox. NAU will prompt you to create an account with them, which is easy (and they will not send you spam, as we have learned from doing this ourselves). Voting closes on July 6, and then the top 5 chosen by the public as well as the top 5 chosen by NAU continue on as finalists.
The Braille Labeler has been awarded second place in the 2010 for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers's Innovation Showcase. The winnings from this competition will be used to bring the labeler closer to market. We are very honored to have placed in the IShow.
The 6dot Braille Labeler was honored to be selected as a semi-finalist for the 2010 for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers's Innovation Showcase. The competition for funds to further develop the labeler will be held on June 5, 2010. Read more about the IShow below:
Check back after June 5th to see how we did.
At the end of January, the labeler will be traveling to Orlando, Florida for the 2010 Assistive Technology Industry Association conference.
Here, we will show the 6dot to the public, and to several companies interested in manufacturing it.
The 6dot has again been recognized as an important innovation. Make:TV created a short segment about the 6dot, which can be seen on the gallery page, or on MIT Tech TV. Make:TV is a national television series which "celebrates 'Makers' - the inventors, artists, geeks and just plain everyday folks who mix new and old technology to create new-fangled marvels." We are proud to be recognized by Make:TV.
The Innovation Economy Conference was held in Washington DC to encourage innovation in the United States. What is this conference? It is:
The 6dot was honored to be one of nine projects selected to exhibit at this conference, which was attended by leading educators, scientists, investors, legislators, and other notable figures.
The 6dot Braille Labeler is fast becoming a presence on the web. It was recently featured in a MIT Spotlight article and an article on CNET. It has also been written about in the Slice of MIT blog, Fast Company, as well as many other websites and blogs which re-print or link to those articles, including IMDB and USA Today. Furthermore, you can follow the labeler on Facebook, where it has its own page. Try a quick Google search to see how knowledge about 6dot is growing. We have 1,320 Google results today; how many will there be tomorrow?
Even though we didn't win the James Dyson Award, we are far from giving up. We recently nominated our company president/CEO, Karina Pikhart, for the NAU Grant for Change. This is a $10,000 grant rewarded to someone who instigates lasting, positive change in the community. There are three categories: athletes, artists, and activists. We feel our project falls in line with the activist category.
Like the James Dyson Award, there is a public voting portion of the competition. This time, you can rate any of the projects, and the top five public votes will advance to the next round along with five votes from the NAU review. Voting is now closed, but feel free to go to Karina's page at www.nau.com, and to explore the website and check out some some of the amazing things others have accomplished.
The results will be out in a few days, so please check back to see how Karina does.
The people have spoken: the labeler has been chosen by the people of the United States of America as the best project this year at the James Dyson Award. What is the award?
Thank you to everyone who voted for us! We certainly couldn't have done it without you. Unfortunately, we didn't make it through the second round of judging, but check back often to see how we do in future competitions.
The 6dot Braille Labeler currently exists at the alpha prototype level. Over the next three months, this prototype will be subjected to rigorous user testing, with focus groups already planned or anticipated in Seattle, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco during August and September. Results from these focus groups will be returned to the 6dot team and our partner to decide on any design changes necessary in the beta prototype.
Any weaknesses in engineering will need to be identified and repaired as well. Life cycle testing and failure analysis are to be performed in the fall. At the same time, the 6dot team will work with the distributor to refine the manufacturability of the product, both in the choice of materials and in the internal packing of parts. Moreover, we hope to improve on some of the adaptability of the 6dot, adding a USB or direct QWERTY keyboard interface to allow printing from a computer or by people (sighted and blind) who are not Braille-literate. Other planned extensions include a memory for commonly-typed labels, and accessibility to different sizes and types of label tape.
Early estimates of cost have been placed between $100 and $200, based upon an overview of the alpha prototype. This value is expected to change as the specifics of the beta prototype are established.
The 6dot Braille Labeler has enjoyed increasing recognition and success as it has moved from the planning phase to a fully realized prototype. Our prototype has been recognized both for the quality of its engineering as well as for its contributions to the blind community. Still early in its development, the 6dot received recognition for its use of 3D CAD modeling in planning the assembled product’s shape and layout. SolidWorks, the CAD modeling software developer, chose the 6dot design (then called the Dot It) from several student projects to be presented at the annual SolidWorks World conference. The 6dot was subsequently featured in the company’s official blog.
In the spring of 2009, the 6dot team received the top undergraduate prize in the Luis DeFlorez Innovation competition, an award bestowed yearly by MIT’s Mechanical Engineering department to recognize ingenuity and creativity in mechanical engineering. The technical merits of the projects were judged by a panel of MIT professors, MIT graduate students, and engineering professionals to determine each idea’s viability and robustness. By winning one of the coveted prizes at the MIT IDEAS Competition in April 2009, the 6dot team was proud to be recognized not only for achievements in engineering, but for the primary motivation behind our project: to make a positive impact in the blind community. The IDEAS Competition “encourages teams to develop and implement projects that make a positive change in the world,” and entries “are judged on their innovation, feasibility, and community impact.” The monetary prizes included with the DeFlorez and IDEAS awards have been, and will continue to be, an indispensable source of funds for the continuation of this project to full production.