LEGO® Braille Bricks Come Home

When the LEGO Foundation’s support of Braille Bricks, as an aid to teach the Braille alphabet to blind children and their families was announced back in 2019, the acclaim was universal. When they started to roll out in 2020 to organizations involved in supporting the blind, people’s enthusiasm continued, although there was some disappointment at the fact that the bricks were not available for purchase.

Starting in September this year (pre-order available now, in some markets), the bricks will be available for purchase through LEGO.com. There will be two forms of the Bricks: an English version and French – the French version of Braille features around 14 additional characters, allowing for the different accent marks used, compared to English. German, Spanish and Italian sets will be available next year.

I’ll have my review coming soon, but you can read on for further details.

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The LEGO Foundation starts to roll out Braille Bricks.

Last April, the LEGO Foundation announced the pilot program involving using modified 2×4 bricks to teach Braille to visually impaired students around the world. After more than a year in pilot programs, the Foundation are pleased to announce that the finalised product will start to roll out around the world – in six countries initially, followed by a wider distribution in 2021.

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LEGO® Braille Bricks Under Development

Yesterday, the LEGO Foundation and LEGO Group announced that they are underway with a pilot program to develop LEGO® Bricks designed to help teach visually impaired children the Braille Alphabet.

Developed in the 1820s by Louis Braille, the Braille alphabet translates the Latin Alphabet into an arrangement of raised dots. With these being arranged in a 2×3 array, this makes them ideal for translating into the surface of LEGO Bricks, with a printed translation of the dot arrangement to aid the sighted who are working with those using these bricks.

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