37th Annual CSUN Assistive Technology Conference Has Concluded

Explore Bonocle: One Braille Cell, Endless Functionalities

Date & Time

Thursday, March 17, 2022 - 3:20 PM PST

Location

Platinum 7-8

Description

My name is Aly, I am the Co-founder and CEO of Bonocle, We are building a braille entertainment platform for the blind community that allows them to learn, get work done and play games with their friends and family in a very unique way along with various other functionalities. Bonocle was designed and built completely based on the community’s feedback; over the past 3 years I have been testing and validating our platform with multiple institutes and members of the community including: the Lighthouse for the Blind in SF, The NFB, NYSSB and Chancy Fleet. This presentation will focus on explaining what Bonocle is, how it works and its main use cases. We will showcase the impact of building a platform designed specifically for the blind and visually impaired community to deliver a better user experience without isolating them from the society. We will also demonstrate how Bonocle can be used along with our apps in three main categories: Productivity, Education, and Gaming. We will start by explaining to the audience what Bonocle is and the key differences between it and other braille devices on the market. (We will list the main features of Bonocle as a hardware and the main advantages of having only one braille cell. We will then showcase some of our productivity/social apps including: -How to navigate a document and a spreadsheet in two dimensions using our Bonocle Reader and Bonocle Sheets apps. -How to measure objects using our measurements app -How to use social media apps like Twitter/Reddit using Bonocle. Third, we will showcase how Bonocle can be utilized in an educational environment and how it can be used to both teach and learn subjects in braille. We will demo some of our educational apps including: -Apps to learn the braille alphabet and practice spelling in any language -An app for remote education that helps connecting students and TVIs online. -Apps that can be used by TVIs in-class to make the teaching experience more productive Finally, we will explain how Bonocle can be used to deliver a unique and immersive gaming experience. We will showcase how our games are tailored to utilize tactility, directional haptic feedback, sounds and motion sensors to enable the blind and visually impaired community to play games with their friends and family. We will demo some of our games including: -Bo’s Run: an endless runner game where the user is controlling a guide dog using Bonocle and helping him avoid obstacles. -A multiplayer Tic Tac Toe game that can be played against anyone -A Crosswords game that will allow the users to solve New York Times daily puzzles and navigate them in a two-dimensional way

Audience

Higher Education
Information & Communications Technology
Disability Specific
K-12 Education
Entertainment & Recreation

Audience Level

Beginning

Session Summary (Abstract)

You have heard about Bonocle, read about it, or ordered it. This session is your guide to the first hands-on experience with Bonocle. Know what to expect in terms of the product's shape, size, functionalities, and the library of apps and immersive games available for the blind community.

Session Type

General Track

Topics