Imagineering Competition Winner Creates Dynamic Tactile Interface for the Visually Impaired
by A.J. Kleber
Charlie Van Hook ‘26 had a clear goal in mind with his winning project entry for this year’s College of Engineering Dean’s Imagineering Competition: develop a sensory display for the visually impaired which would be both functional and financially accessible, unlike currently-available commercial products.
The idea originated during Van Hook’s freshman year, when his earliest prototype used large solenoids to raise tactile dots. Building on that initial concept — and on work completed with his Senior Design team, which earned this year’s inaugural ECE Senior Design Societal Impact Award — Van Hook later refined the system by using electrofluidics to actuate raised dots in flexible silicone membranes, creating a dynamic braille surface.
Van Hook likens his low-power, compact product to sci-fi technology featured in the recent film Project Hail Mary; a screen viewer the alien character Rocky, who perceives the world through echolocation rather than sight, builds to convert a 2-dimensional display into a 3D, depth-based system he can interpret.
In addition to the physical interface, Van Hook developed several complimentary software programs which extend the potential of a dynamic tactile surface far beyond the translation of written words. One program converts video content into what he terms a “spatial tactile field,” offering a touch-based method for translating visual information and environments. A second uses similar principles specifically for representing sporting events in real-time, mapping out player positions, ball movement, the spatial environment and the flow of gameplay; a fully tactile, spatial alternative to verbal commentary. The third and final program provides dynamic tactile representations of concepts in math and geometry, such as graphs and vector fields, which can “illustrate” the changes and transformations wrought by mathematical operations. These innovations represent the potential of assistive technology to go beyond interpretations of sighted experience, instead centering alternative sensory perspectives.
Van Hook’s project is thoroughly in keeping with the Imagineering Competition’s promotion of the BU ENG ideal of Creating the Societal Engineer. His work’s potential to positively impact society earned him first place in this year’s event, out of 10 total entries.
While Van Hook doesn’t have concrete plans for the future development of this technology, his upcoming Ph.D. research at Stanford University will include investigation into controllers for similar systems.
This year’s Dean’s Imagineering Competition was judged by Executive Director of BTEC and Professor of the Practice Diane Joseph-McCarthy (BME, Chemistry, MSE), Senior Associate Dean for Finance and Administration Richard Lally, and Associate Dean for Graduate Programs and Associate Professor Anna Swan (ECE, Physics, MSE).