3D printing can be used in a lot of different fields and sometimes the results can be heartbreaking. A perfect example is the story about the project Hands On Search by Yahoo Japan. This 3D project helps visually impaired children to feel things they can’t see.
The team used inter alia, a MakerBot Replicator 2 and a custom built search engine by Yahoo Japan to create a new 3D printing machine (above). Not only does it look sweet, but it also helps the visually impaired. The children from the The Special Needs Education School for the Visually Impaired can easily request an object with their voice and then feel what this looks like.
They can just speak in the machine and say things like “Giraffe” or “Tokyo Skytree”. The machine is created to help them understand the shape of objects that they can’t simply reach and touch. When they say something like “Giraffe”, the machine automatically starts printing out an object that has the shape of the requested object; the giraffe.
If you want to know more about this amazing project from Yahoo Japan, then check out this video: