Version 1.0, released in October 2026, is the first full release after a run of public preview versions. It comes as two tools, each its own customizable file, and you choose by counting the plug’s prongs:
Test prints decided the split. The one-sided puller held every 2-prong plug, but 3-prong plugs slipped out of it; the two-sided plates held both 3-prong plugs, but let every 2-prong plug and the USB-C tip fall out however tight the zip ties were. A 3-prong plug has long straight sides for the teeth to bite along.
The three hand sizes come from the ANSUR II hand-measurement survey (the United States Army’s 2012 anthropometric survey): Small fits about a 5th-percentile female hand, Large about a 95th-percentile male hand, and Medium is the print-tested reference device. If a number cannot work, the model prints a red warning tag beside the part naming the measurement to fix, so a bad print is caught before it starts.
Print flat on the bed as the file comes, with no supports, 0.2 mm layers, 3 to 4 walls and 25 to 35 % infill, in PETG (polyethylene terephthalate glycol) or PLA (polylactic acid). A tool takes about 12 to 27 g of filament, plus two or three zip ties. The two-sided file holds both plates: lay the plug on one plate between its toothed arms, turn the other plate over on top, thread three zip ties through both plates and across the plug, pull them tight and trim the tails. The one-sided puller seats on the plugged-in plug, the cord presses into the hook, and zip ties or a strap hold it on. Then two fingers go through the holes and the pull is straight back. Do not use it on a damaged cord, a cracked plug, or a plug that is warm to the touch, and reprint a tool that cracks.
The repository’s documentation follows the Makers Making Change Open AT (open assistive technology) template: a Maker Guide, an Assembly Guide By Touch that says every step for the hands, a Visual Assembly Guide without words, a User Guide, a bill of materials, and a quick start and a full guide for each tool, every one also a tagged PDF (portable document format) file. One limit is worth knowing: the presets are United States plug types (NEMA, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association standard); the measure-it-yourself path may suit other regions’ plugs, but that is untested.
For the original fixed-size design that prints ready to use, see the separate Plug Puller - Assistive Technology Solution from WATAP. The project was made possible with support from the Washington Assistive Technology Act Program (WATAP) and the University of Washington Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences (UW CREATE).
]]>It is nine 3D-printed parts plus two cylinders generated from your text. There are no off-the-shelf parts, fasteners, springs, glue or electronics: every part snaps or slides together by hand, and the cost is a few dollars of filament plus card stock.
Cylinders made for Version 1 do not fit: Version 2’s are 30.8 mm across and 54 mm tall.
The message is not on the device. It is on the pair of cylinders, so changing it means printing a new pair. Make them in the web app linked above: choose Version 2 under Embosser setup, type your text, and download both cylinders in one file. The translation runs on your device with Liblouis, the open-source braille translator used by screen readers and braille displays, in more than fifty languages and in contracted or uncontracted braille; if you read braille yourself, the translation lands in an editable field first, so you can change any cell before generating. Nothing you type leaves your browser. The same generator is also an OpenSCAD file for offline use, from the source link above; it takes braille characters rather than text, so the translation is then yours to supply. A double-sided pair embosses both faces of a card in one pass.
The nine parts print with a printer’s default 0.2 mm profile, supports off: from the sliced Bambu Lab X1C projects in the download, about 6 hours and 188 g of PLA (polylactic acid) on one plate. A cylinder pair prints better at 0.12 mm layers or finer with the Arachne wall generator, about 2 hours 46 minutes and 37 g. The tactile assembly map’s six plates take about 4 hours 25 minutes and 173 g over three beds.
Turn the Handle to its home position, lay the embosser on its side with the slit up, drop a card in, turn about half a turn, then turn the embosser over and keep turning until the last row has come out of the window. With the card still held in the cylinders, roll back and forward over the rows twice more, then let it out. The pair is made for 0.4 mm card, which is most business cards; if a pair punches holes instead of leaving rounded dots, the User Guide says when to generate one at 0.3 mm.
The download carries seven guides as tagged PDF (portable document format) files with every picture described, numbered by the step they belong to. Step 1, making the cylinders: a Web Generator Guide and an OpenSCAD Generator Guide. Step 2, the build: a short Maker Guide, an Assembly Guide By Touch that says every step for the hands so the embosser can be built without sight, a Visual Assembly Guide without words, and the key to the tactile assembly map. Step 3: a User Guide. They follow the Makers Making Change Open AT (open assistive technology) documentation template. Version 2 is published as STL (stereolithography) files; Version 1 remains available with its CAD (computer-aided design) source and video tutorials.
If you build one, tell me what confused you in a comment on the listing: that is the most useful thing I can hear.
]]>Nobody has to solder anything. The board is ordered from JLCPCB with both parts already fitted, so building one means pressing a keyboard switch into the socket by hand, pushing on a printed keycap, and snapping the four printed housing parts together. No screws and no glue either.
Commercial access switches arrive with one actuation force baked in. When it is too heavy or too light for the person in front of me, there is not much I can do except order a different switch and wait. Mechanical keyboard switches are mass-produced, cheap, and sold in a wide range of forces, feels, and sounds: light linear for limited strength, heavier for someone who rests a hand on the button, clicky for someone who needs to hear that the press registered. Swapping one takes seconds and no tools, so the button can be matched to the person, and matched again when their needs change.
Five interchangeable keycaps change the size, height, and texture of the pressing surface, including one with a tactile pattern you can find by touch.
The GitHub repository linked above has everything needed to make one and to build on it: the board files ready to upload to JLCPCB with assembly turned on, the parts and placement lists, the nine printable parts, a step-by-step ordering guide, and an assembly guide where every step has a photograph and every photograph is described in words. It also has the real costs from my own orders. A finished switch currently comes to about $8.43 in small quantities, most of that the cable and the board, and the board alone drops from $4.82 to $2.36 each when ordered fifty at a time.
This is a working prototype, not a finished release. The housing is at version 0.5 and the board at version 0.2, both built and in daily use. The Fusion 360 sources for the printed parts are not published yet; I will add them once they are cleaned up, so for now the parts can be reproduced from the mesh files but not easily modified. The assembly animation on YouTube shows an earlier housing revision, with the same order of assembly.
]]>This is a fully 3D-printable, hand-operated braille card embosser designed to create custom braille cards without electronics, fasteners, or glue. Braille business card embossers are typically machined out of metal and made for individual use only, which makes them very expensive. This design brings the cost down to filament, and its interchangeable plates mean one tool can serve multiple users, for example in an office environment, reducing waste while improving accessibility.
Everything needed to build one is on the project pages linked above: print-ready STL (stereolithography) model files and sliced Bambu X1C profiles, example embossing and counter plate pairs for 0.3 mm and 0.4 mm card stock, the CAD (computer-aided design) sources, and the documentation set (Maker Guide, User Guide, Quickstart, bill of materials, design rationale), plus the three-part video series.
The braille content itself comes from a companion generator: either the web app (type text, it translates for you) or the OpenSCAD version for offline and fully parametric use. One embosser serves as many people as you have plates.
The illustrated guide and Makers Making Change documentation planned here came with Version 2 instead. For Version 1, a complete three-part video series covers the whole build: part 1 customizes the braille, downloads the files, and walks through print settings; part 2 assembles the printed parts; part 3 shows the finished embosser in use. All three are linked above.
If you print, build, test, or adapt this design, feedback is very welcome. If anything is unclear or you run into a problem, please reach out through the model pages linked above.
]]>You can generate either uncontracted braille (Grade 1, where every letter is spelled out) or contracted braille (Grade 2, which uses the standard contractions most experienced readers prefer). Pick whichever suits the reader: a beginner learning the alphabet and a fluent reader want different output from the same text.
If you read braille, you can correct the translation by hand in the braille editor, typing braille ASCII or using six-key entry, before the model is made.
Tactile signs get raised letters on top and a Liblouis-translated braille section below. The tool automatically splits the two into separate printable sections, and an optional border makes the pieces look and feel like one continuous sign after gluing.
Braille dots print poorly when they face straight up on an FDM (fused deposition modeling) printer, so the braille section is angled at 75 degrees on a stand with quick-removal support fins, a small trick that makes a big difference in dot quality and readability.
Braille cards cover business cards, labels, and tags. The card prints leaning back at 75 degrees on break-away support fins (the “wedge card” design the repo is named for), so the dots print cleanly instead of facing straight up, where dome quality and readability suffer.
Text longer than one card can go on several: the All cards layout groups the lines into cards of 8 rows by default and prints every card in one file, so a full address or a multi-line label needs no splitting by hand.
This tool generates a printable braille card model. It is a different project from the Custom Braille Card Embosser, which is a printed, hand-operated machine that presses braille into blank paper cards.
Charms are small bracelet pieces carrying one braille letter each, for braille name bracelets and wearable braille labels. The tool orients each charm on its side for better dot quality and rotates the braille so the charms read correctly once they are on a bracelet.
For charms carrying picture symbols instead of braille, see the separate Charm Designer.
Each shape is an ordinary OpenSCAD file, and each one works two ways:
Braille_Sign_STL_Generator.scad, Braille_Wedge_Card_STL_Generator.scad, and Braille_Charm_STL_Generator.scad.If you print with it, feedback on braille readability from your printer is especially welcome; share it on the model pages linked above.
]]>It builds three shapes:
You do not need to supply artwork. The tool ships with a built-in symbol library you can pick from, and your own SVG drawing, or a PNG or JPG picture that it converts to a drawing, covers anything the library does not.
This is a separate tool from the braille charms in the Braille Card Designer: those carry braille letters, while these carry picture symbols. Both run in the OpenSCAD Assistive Forge, but they are independent customizers with different inputs.
A drawing editor is built in: it shows how the design will print, flags shapes too thin or too small to print at charm size, and can remove them until the design prints reliably.
This design started as a request to recreate a discontinued AAC (augmentative and alternative communication) product called a “Q-Charm”, a bracelet of small picture charms used for communication and task prompts.
The first answer to that request was a fixed, non-customizable model by Duy Do, a student in WOOF3D, the University of Washington’s 3D printing club: AAC Charms With Boardmaker Symbols For Silicone Bracelets. I later published a remix of Duy’s design with print fixes applied; both are still fixed STL files rather than customizers. The idea was then iterated through hackathons including the Adaptive Solutions Mini-Hackathon with CREATE (the University of Washington’s Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences), HuskyADAPT, and King County Library System, and the GitHub Open Source Assistive Technology Hackathon, which is where it grew into this customizer.
The Charm Designer exists because of work by several people and groups:
A paraeducator working in audiology and assistive technology, Daniel K., used the Charm Designer to make a task-list charm bracelet for a student who is hard of hearing. The numbered charms are a visual reminder to put on their hearing aid, get the teacher’s DM microphone, connect it wirelessly to the hearing aid, and charge it at the end of the school day. Daniel shared the charm photos on this page for public use.
If you make a bracelet with it, feedback is very welcome; share it on the model pages linked above.
]]>It opens by asking which interface you want: Assistive Forge, a guided layout for screen readers, keyboard use and people new to OpenSCAD, in light, dark and high-contrast themes; or Classic, the layout of the desktop OpenSCAD program, for people who already know it. A design can be shared as one link that opens it ready to customize, as the links on the Parametric Plug Puller page do, and the app can be installed from the browser to work offline.
The Forge’s main page offers two built-in tools, each with its own project page here.
Every tool is an ordinary OpenSCAD file underneath (the braille variants come from the braille-sign-openscad, braille-wedge-card-openscad, and braille-charm-openscad repositories), so each one also works in desktop OpenSCAD’s Customizer if you prefer working offline.
The Charm Designer is the work of Nasif Zaman, Duy Do (UW WOOF3D) and HuskyADAPT; I build and maintain the Forge itself.
This project started as a request to recreate a discontinued AAC (augmentative and alternative communication) product called a “Q-Charm”, a bracelet of small picture charms used for communication and task prompts. The idea developed through several hands: an individual design request from job coaches at a university employment program was first taken on by a 3D print club student (early design on Thingiverse), then iterated through hackathons including the Adaptive Solutions Mini-Hackathon with CREATE (the University of Washington’s Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences), HuskyADAPT, and King County Library System, and the GitHub Open Source Assistive Technology Hackathon. Along the way the goal grew from one charm design into a general web front-end for OpenSCAD assistive design tools.
]]>Printing a shape like this is a challenge in itself: the curve loops through open space in every direction, so these prints used dissolvable support material that washes away in water. The photos show them before and after the supports came off.
Unlike most projects on this site, this one is not a device for a specific task. It is a STEM and math education piece: a way for students to hold and trace a chaotic system by touch rather than only seeing it on a screen, which also makes it usable in a classroom or library for learners who are blind or have low vision.
]]>The design is under active development; the project files show many iterations of the poles, arms, and floor pieces (currently around edit 2.4+), refining how the parts print and fit together.
]]>The prototypes shown above are not yet a finished release; the current ready-to-print files are the v1 design linked on the original project page. The Thingiverse listing above carries both the v2 and v3 iterations, shared early so testers can try the new grip and report back before either is finalized.
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