The TacTiles project is a concept started by one of our collaborators, Anna Shvarts of Utrecht University VET, primarily directed to assist blind and low vision students in better understanding basic algebraic concepts faster and at a younger age. For years complex mathematics has been limited mostly to writing on paper and getting these concepts across to someone with blindness or low vision has always been a challenge. TacTiles consists of a board and tiles, where tiles of different areas are used to represent numbers and variables based on their dimensions. By introducing algebra as a physical concept we can pair the value of integers and variables with a tangible sense. Combining this with computer vision to introduce an automatic equation checker we can streamline the ability for students to learn key concepts. In the future we aim to target this system to be a standard in all education; blind, low vision, and full vision. We hope that this project can pave the way for even more robust learning methods in the field of mathematics and scienceÂ
Anna Shvarts (Utrecht University)