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Braille Sudoku

Braille Sudoku

This weekend, my daughter fell off a ladder and broke her ankle in two places. The emergency room in the hospital awarded her a splint along with crutches. As a newly handicapped person, she is learning the ease and inconvenience of this method of transportation.

And so it is with low and no vision (which my mother suffered from). Braille seems to be the standard way of writing things down that is accessible to the visually impaired. This kinesthetic language was created in 1821 by Louis Braille for non-linear reading and writing. It is the first binary encoding of the characters of various languages. See Wikipedia for more information.

I thought it interesting to see how Sudoku puzzles could be adapted for use in Braille. Obviously a board is not the best medium for this. Paper or parchment may allow one-time use. There do exist refreshable Braille Displays, which can serve the same purpose as erasable white boards. Unfortunately, the current models are limited to 80 cells at a maximum and are expensive to buy.

I feel strongly, that the mind and the active senses are quite adaptable. I hope Sudoku arrives in the world of the blind to offer mental exercise and logical satisfaction. Consider this my push in that direction.