Chess for the blind and disabled

[DaveNave]

Hi,

My brother, Chris, is physically disabled in his upper body and is blind and deaf at the same time, but he is certainly not dumb. He recently discovered how to play chess and really loves it, but it has proven difficult for him to find someone who is willing to play with him on a real board. That is why I am researching the possibility to use an interface such as TandemMaster (http://www.tandemmaster.org/) or similar to build a device so that he can play versus a computer software.

There are several chess softwares on the market where it is possible to enter a move (e.g. a1a2, corresponding to a movement from a1 to a2) from the keyboard and then press enter. As I understand it, this would be possible to do using TandemMaster. The issue is how he can recieve the moves back. The chess softwares that are available generate a soundbyte with the move that it has played e.g. it might say "King from a1 to a2. But because Chris is deaf he needs to receive his moves in some other way.

My thought is to change the speaking voice to morse code like soundbytes by altering the sound files and then instead of using a loud speaker I will utilise a vibrator that will pick up on the distinct morse code sound. More specifically, "King from a1 to a2" is actually King.wmv+from.wmv+a1.wmv+to.wmv+a2.wmv. By changing the person speaking to biiiiping sounds they could be translated into vibrator signals.

What do you think about this, is it plausible? Do you know of any better solution in conjunction with a software like TandemMaster?

Thank you for you help!

David

 

[keith1200rs]

Quite a challenge there. The tandemmaster would appear to cover one half of the problem well and sounds trouble free - it emulates a USB keyboard. That presumes that the chess software accepts key presses for the moves instead of needing a mouse. I assume the tandemmaster has some command for the enter key?

So, you are left with interfacing the computer response, for which there seems to be no ready made solution (I tried a search for audio to morse, but that is a lot more tricky than the other way round so doesn't appear to have been done).

Assuming the audio files that make up the sound are accessible, it certainly sounds possible. My area is analogue electronics so could help in the conversion of sound to vibration. I am also a drummer (electronic) and seem to remember seeing a drum throne with a transducer to kick your butt when the kick drum goes. Maybe a bit extreme for your case.

Presumably your brother has to totally memorise thee board position? Is he totally blind?

Keith

 

[DaveNave]

Hi Keith and thank you for your input,

My brother became completely blind at age of about 10. However, he is so good at memorising the board that he beats most of the members in my family.

The problem I have is that I have no prior knowledge about electronics which means I may need some guiding from you.

The TandemMaster does all the input to the computer and does ENTER. The chess software also accepts keyboard input for making moves. The problem as you say is how to make the output accessible to my brother.

I thought it could be done very simply: I change the voice files to distinct long and short 'biiips' and then join the vibrator to the audio cable instead of the actual speaker?

I suppose there is something that does not work with this as you speak of having to create an interface. Please forgive my lack of knowledge of electronics.

 

[keith1200rs]

I suppose there is something that does not work with this as you speak of having to create an interface. Please forgive my lack of knowledge of electronics.

David,

I think you are ok, although you may need to boost the PC output power with a small amplifier. You need to turn sound into a vibration and ideally that would be quite a low frequency. I am not sure how low a PC sound card will go, but I am sure it will do 50Hz and I am fairly sure you could feel 50Hz. So, the morse code could be made from bursts of 50Hz, rather than "clicks". You could generate audible clicks easily, but it might be more difficult to "feel" when put into a transducer of some sort (or loud speaker). However, if you have looked at a bass speaker you will see there is significant movement - plenty enough to feel. I thought you may be able to use a small piezo transducer rather than a loudspeaker but I just tried one and cannot feel any movement. Another option is an motor with an offset weight like they use as a vibrator in mobile phones for the vibrator. You would just need a circuit to detect any audio frequency and turn the motor on. Might be a bit slow though, although I guess the amount of information required is small, so speed isn't an issue.

My main concern would be the accessibility of the audio files in the software. They may be embedded in the code. Have you looked at that yet? Where are you based? Provided you can sort of the software issues I am sure I can solve the sound to pulse/vibration one - it might just take a little experimentation to get the best solution.

Keith.

 

[ccccrnr]

Dave,

nice project, nice to do for you brother.

Does he know brail?
If so you maybe able to connect a Reusable Brail Display to the computer.
There is a varity of Voice-to-Text software outthere that could be used to generate the text for the Brail Display.
Or if you using OpenSource code like GNU-Chess5, you can hack in a text output from the command line which could be sent to the Brail Display.

Would you please provide a video of you and your brother playing chess?
I can't remember all the pieces, I have to get up and stare at the board from side to side.
This is just amazing your brother can.