Toby Swannell
Industrial Design and Technology
Final year project
Enhanced Brailler for the Visually Impaired: A modernised Braille Typewriter for use in schools and universities by students. The product is lighter, smaller and less expensive than traditional products. The enhanced Brailler prints english (or any other set language) alongside Braille allowing work to be read/marked by non-Braille literate teachers.
The enhanced brailler is much lighter and smaller than traditional options, enabling schoolchildren and students to transport the device from home to school with ease.
The device prints both Braille and any visual language, allowing non-braille literate teachers to read the work produced. This negates the expense/time currently required to translate Braille text.
Interchangeable keys allow the user to customise their typing experience as they grow up, allowing the device to adapt to the user throughout their school years.
Silent operation allows Visually Impaired students to produce notes in quiet situations such as lectures and presentations. Current braille products are loud in operation due to their mechanical operation.
Toby Swannell
Since the days of first discovering Lego, Mecano and train sets (when I should have been doing homework), I've loved design and engineering. Anything from Victorian train stations to World War 2 fighter planes was an interest to me. This inspired me to take things apart and explore how they worked, seeing how they could be improved or designed differently. I initially wanted to go into civil engineering as a child, inspired by the incredible bridges and railways designed by Brunel - however through school, I discovered a love for fine art. These two subjects combined through secondary school leading to my current discipline, Industrial Design.
My university projects have been centred around helping users with simple, accessible solutions to growing problems. Creating something meaningful and genuinely beneficial for someone is what drives me to be a better designer - not just designing more plastic stuff that no-one needs.
Awards
Speaking at a TEDx conference at the age of 16 was hugely rewarding. I spoke about how the worlds' most influential photographers utilised creativity differently in their work, seeing how we can learn from their processes in all walks of life.
Experience
Photographer at a local sports magazine in the South West, covering football and rugby events in Bath and Bristol.
Placements
Sept 17 - Sept 18
Design and Marketing Placement at Loughborough Design School