[HN Gopher] I used Lego to design a farm for people who are blin...
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I used Lego to design a farm for people who are blind - like me
Author : ColinWright
Score : 88 points
Date : 2026-01-05 18:02 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| vunderba wrote:
| This is great, but boy I'm glad I took the time to actually read
| the article.
|
| I assumed it was about someone who took a huge number of standard
| rectangular LEGO bricks with the 6/8 raised studs, then
| laboriously shaved them off to create all the necessary braille
| patterns, and used them on large LEGO boards to quickly assemble
| messages/notifications for blind readers.
|
| Reality - it's about using lego to help "visualize" architecture.
|
| _EDIT: Apparently this already exists!_
|
| https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/play-with-braille-english...
| tdeck wrote:
| Your description reminds me of a blind guy I know who is
| interested in architecture, and began to collect scale models
| of famous building so he could feel them and experience their
| architecture. Eventually he took an interest in buildings that
| were less famous or didn't have high quality models, and
| started commissioning an artist to model them in CAD and 3D
| print them. Now he has a business producing and selling these
| tactics models.
|
| https://evengrounds.com/about/
| ctoth wrote:
| Oh no.
|
| I'm a blind guy. I have a distinct interest in starships -- I
| have every Eaglemoss model, and many many more.
|
| If I click this link I am totally going to get sucked into
| having people design and print me starships -- I need another
| project like I need another hole in my head.
| UltraSane wrote:
| I have always wondered how blind people "visualize" (I
| can't think of a better term) large scale objects.
| bell-cot wrote:
| I've no idea. But flipside, I know quite a few sighted
| people who can't walk around a rectangular block without
| losing track of which way north is. Or can't visualize
| that (say) their master bedroom closet backs up to their
| kitchen. Or other facepalm-worthy visualization failings.
| toast0 wrote:
| > without losing track of which way north is.
|
| I blame my childhood. Everyone always said the Pacific
| Ocean is to the west. So naturally the direction I went
| to go to the beach on the pacific ocean should be West.
| Especially when the north/south freeway crosses the
| street I take to the beach at a pretty good angle (well
| it's more like 45 degrees). Turns out I actually go south
| to go to the beach, the freeway is roughly parallel to
| the coast and north/south freeways sometimes travel due
| east/west and I have a real hard time with cardinal
| directions, and even if I understand where the directions
| are when outside, when I enter a building, especially if
| I go up stairs or an elevator, my sense of where the
| cardinal directions from inside the building is likely to
| be way off.
|
| Thankfully, there's not a big impact from not knowing
| where room walls are relative to each other. :P
| abeyer wrote:
| The "lego for architecture" already exists too, though it was
| branded and then spun off as a separate company.
|
| https://brickipedia.fandom.com/wiki/Modulex
| retrac wrote:
| Sensory disabilities like deafness and blindness are disabling
| because the world is not oriented to people with sensory
| disabilities.
|
| I am reminded that the Deaf have their own mythology. American
| Sign Language is distinct; it's not English. Accordingly it has
| its own culture, including its own myths. Many of them are fables
| and stories from the western tradition slightly adapted. But some
| are original.
|
| One common theme in American Deaf mythology (but I'd bet it's
| told elsewhere too) is stories about a world which is visually
| oriented. There's an ASL word for this world but English doesn't
| have one. Sometimes it's translated as Eyeth a.k.a. "Eye-Earth".
|
| It's more than just a world where everyone is deaf or where
| everyone communicates in ASL. It has something like spiritual
| meaning to some of those who tell stories about it; in that world
| the Deaf are not disabled, not in the social way that matters.
| UltraSane wrote:
| No, deafness and blindness are disabling because they provide
| critical long range data. Being able to see is essentially a
| superpower if you are blind. Same with hearing.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Only in that narrow viewpoint. Most people talk about
| disability in the context of a society because much of what
| we encounter in our day to day is created by other people.
| The sights, sounds, smells, and experiences in our world are
| frequently because of others. So in that context, if the
| dominant culture makes it a point to create experiences that
| require hearing or sight to consume, then yes it's a
| disability. But if we adapt some or all of what we do for
| people who don't have those senses, then we can make it less
| disabling.
| suddenlybananas wrote:
| While it's good for society to accommodate those with
| disabilities as much as possible, we shouldn't pretend it
| isn't detrimental to be unable to see or hear. You don't
| need to believe obvious falsehoods in order to accommodate
| people.
| fwip wrote:
| You've set up a straw man here - nobody in this thread is
| claiming that it's not detrimental to be missing a sense.
|
| The point is that disability exists within the context of
| the world we live in, and the society we've built is one
| that largely assumes people have both sight and hearing.
| lurk2 wrote:
| I've always found this semantic argument somewhat silly
| as being blind or deaf is an obvious disadvantage in
| natural contexts, but one of the more compelling ideas
| here is that the fitness boundary isn't fixed. It would
| probably be a fitness advantage if I could sense
| electromagnetic fields, but no one would describe me as
| disabled for not being able to sense these fields--
| unless, perhaps, everyone else could.
|
| So what we consider to be a disability does seem to be a
| function of what we consider to be normal.
| suddenlybananas wrote:
| >So what we consider to be a disability does seem to be a
| function of what we consider to be normal.
|
| Obviously? How could it be based on anything else? People
| are just much more uncomfortable with making normative
| statements than they used to be.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Meh, my formidable powers of foresight aren't really a
| superpower. Few people listen until things have progressed
| far enough that they see the things, too, by which point
| there are rarely many interventions available. And every time
| we _do_ intervene early, that 's "you said this would happen
| and it didn't happen!", making it harder to convince people
| the next time. And when things _do_ turn out more-or-less as
| predicted, I "made a lucky guess" because "there was no way
| you could have known that".
|
| In the land of the blind, why would anyone pay _attention_ to
| this weirdo 's ramblings about "rain-clouds"? Obviously
| they're just feeling changes to temperature, pressure, and
| humidity. Oh, and they know what shapes things are? Wow! So
| does everyone _else_ who 's touched the things. Sure, that
| "how many fingers am I holding up?" party trick is pretty
| neat (probably cold reading), but not something we should
| make policy decisions on the basis of.
|
| You underestimate the extent to which humans are social
| creatures. See also: H. G. Wells's story _The Country of the
| Blind_.
| https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Country_of_the_Blind
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Maybe, but that isn't really what the GP post is talking
| about. At the level of mythology, the eye-earth is place
| where people of that group belong without judgment or
| limitation. No different from Harry Potter or Narnia or any
| other fantasy place one might imagine going where they can be
| with their people.
|
| In any case, I'm not sure this even survives transposing to
| other senses that humans are weak in, such as smell (like
| prey animals) or magnetic direction (like migratory birds). A
| human who randomly had these would indeed be seen as
| superpowered, but that wouldn't become a statement that all
| regularly-abled humans are now disabled for missing the
| "critical" long range sense.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| That's fascinating, is this explained in detail somewhere? How
| did you learn about this?
| bitwize wrote:
| Was not disappoint when I saw the photos of the models he built.
| I had expected a hodgepodge of brick colors due to color not
| being a meaningful constraint on a blind person's Lego build.
| layer8 wrote:
| I wonder how the non-random color patterns in the pictured LEGO
| build came to be. Maybe he's not 100% blind?
| greenwallnorway wrote:
| From what I can tell in the image:
|
| 2x6: white
|
| 2x4: blue
|
| 2x2: grey
|
| This makes interesting patterns, since you are more likely to
| use certain bricks in certain positions.
| FarmerPotato wrote:
| Lego retail stores have the odd habit of stocking Pick-A-
| Brick this way.
| abeyer wrote:
| Pick-A-Brick sounded like such a good idea on paper, until
| you realize that the economics of it end up being a handful
| of brick size/color combos and then bin after bin of
| minifig accessories.
| blauditore wrote:
| As the other comment mentions, it might be due to brick size,
| but also note that many people considered blind still have some
| non-zero vision (just e.g. extremely blurry, or a tiny field of
| view etc.). Although this guy had a glaucoma at the age of six,
| so there would be extremely little left by now.
| 3tgsh wrote:
| Ggf
| a_paddy wrote:
| Lego created a specific series of bricks in the 1960's for this
| exact purpose, called Modulex.
|
| Originally designed for architects etc, it's still going.
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=I_OUxVuoxjk
| aetherspawn wrote:
| I was thinking the other day that there should be wearable
| bangles for blind people with ultrasonic sensors or something
| that encode a 360 degree view of the world into vibrations.
|
| If each bangle had 40 or so pixels, you'd get 80 pixels with one
| on each arm.
| athampraveen wrote:
| My son is very interested in this. I am building an application
| to create designs online. Mainly to keep him away from video
| reels :)
|
| https://app.brixox.com/
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