Monday, May 20, 2013

The Tactile Follow-Along Books are Bound and Beautiful!

The books are DONE!  Let me tell you, even though each page only takes 5 seconds to form, the 25 tactile pages per book did not take just a few minutes to make (as a certain blog author thought they would).  In other words, the books took a smidge longer to create than I expected, especially with a few hiccups along the way.

 My original molds, first off, started falling apart with repeated use and subjection to extreme heat.  Luckily though, thanks to the knowledge I gained from watching the model being built, I knew how to cast new and more durable plastic molds to use from old pages.  Man was that a lifesaver!  


On a desk sits a tan colored piece of Braillon paper (a plastic feeling paper) with the image of Little Star (a circle with a face and rays of light like spikes coming out of the circle). On the paper is a white cup with a trial of white plastic that is about 1/4 inch thick in diameter extending to a blob of the white resin substance that rests in the face of Little Star on the Braillon paper. The blob is about 1.5 inches in diameter and about half the size of the star's face that it is supposed to cover.
Oops... the resin solidified faster than I expected!

On a green cutting board sits two pages of tan Braillon. Each page is acting like a mold. The page on the left has two of Mars' moons (lopsided and oval in shape), a canyon (oval and bumpy with a smooth crevice in the middle), and a 2.5 inch in diameter circle filled with the white casting resin that will become the new mold of the character of Mars. The page on the right features Little Star being born and the white resin is pooled in a smaller circle of about 1.5 inches in diameter and in curved lines spreading away from the circle - 3 on each side).
Take two... The resin is poured into the pages of Braillon in time and is now starting to solidify in the shape of the characters on the pages.
A tan page of Braillon shows the face of the character of Mars raised out of the page. He is about 2.5 inches in diameter and has two large open eyes, a big nose and a wide open smile with a small chin. Next to him on the right is a white duplicate of him sitting on top of the Braillon - this is the new mold that will be used to create more pages of Braillon with the tactile image of Mars.
Success!  mars now has a new mold to create many more tactie pages!
In the end, 25 new molds were made and after an entire day, all the tactile pages were created.

 Finally, a screen shot from each scene of the show was taken and turned into its own page with large print that says exactly what the Braille says on the tactile page.   This created the complimentary page to make "twin-vision" in the book so that anyone, no matter their ability to read Braille or print or to feel images or see them, can use the books.

 Each page for all seven books was then placed in the correct order and I headed off to Office Depot the next morning.  They were BEYOND kind in helping get the regular paper pages laminated and all the books bound together.  They are absolutely BEAUTIFUL!




Sitting on a desk of dark wood is a completed tactile follow-along twin vision book for The Little Star That Could Planetarium Show. The book has a black spiral binding on the left side and the cover, which is all that is visible of the book, is tan and plastic-like Braillon. It has the raised image of the Little Star That Could show poster, featuring Little Star, a circle of about 2.5 inches in diameter with a smiling face and rays protruding from the circle, Mr. Angry Blue-White Star, a circle of about 1 inch in diameter with a frowning face and rays protruding from the circle, Big Daddy, a circle of about 1 inch in diameter with a smiling face, sunglasses and rays protruding from the circle, and Pearl, a circle of about 1 inch in diameter with a smiling face and rays protruding from the circle. The title, "The Little Star That Could," appears in contracted Braille at the top of the cover, with the tag line, "Sometimes being average can also be special," in contracted Braille below the raised images of the stars.
The Tactile Follow-Along Twin Vision book is complete! :D

The tactile follow-along twin vision book lays open to the pages where Little Star meets Mr. Old-Timer Orange Star. On the left page is a color image of the two characters meeting from the video. The Orange star is on the left, a circle of about 1 inch in diameter with a wrinkled face and white mustache, Little Star the yellow star is on the right, a circle of about 1/2 inch in diameter with a face holding a smile. Each character is labeled in large print and large print also appears above the image reading: Little Star meets Mr. Old-Timer Orange Star. Below is "Page 3" in Large print as well. The same image appears on the right page, but this time the image is on Braille and it is raised so that the detail can be felt. The same titles also appear in contracted Braille, with only the page number changing from 3 to 4.
Little Star meets Mr. Old-Timer Orange Star... in large print AND Braille!
The tactile follow-along books is now open to the next two twin vision pages. On the right page near the top in large print is the caption "Mr. Old-Timer Orange Star is the star Arcturus in the constellation Bootes the Herdsman. Below the print is a diagram of the constellation that looks a bit like connect the dots to form a drawing that looks like a kite. An arrow points to Arcturus, which is an orange star in the diagram at the base of the diamond part of the kite where the tail would attach. Page 5 is at the bottom left side of the page. On the left side of the book, the same caption appears at the top of the page in contracted Braille and the same constellation drawing appears, but raised from the Braillon with a tactile arrow pointing to the star Arcturus. Page 6 is at the bottom right side of the page in Braille.
Every star is based off of a star in the real night sky, so this is also noted in the book in both large print and Braille
The book is open to a page later in the tactile book. On the right page is the image of the character of the planet, Mars. He is a circle of about 3 inches with raised eyebrows, relaxed eyes, a large nose and a wide open smile. Below him are images of Mars' moons, phobos and demos as well as Valles Marineris, the canyon on Mars. Each image is labeled in large print and at the top of the page in large print is the caption, "Little Star meets Mars." At the bottom of the page on the left is "Page 43." The page on the right contains the same images raised up from the Braillon page. Each is labeled in contracted Braille as is the caption at the top of the page. Page 44 is in Braille on the bottom right side of the page.
Little Star meets Mars and learns about the planet's physical features and its moons


 A big thank you again to Lighthouse for the Blind Saint Louis, Thom and Ian for your help in learning how to make molds, Deb for your fantastic work in Brailling (and helping me learn to read Braille so I knew what I was doing!), and Jo from Delta Gamma Saint Louis and the TVIs from Saint Louis' Special School District for your advice on how to best create the twin vision books!  A very special thank you as well to the technicians at Office Depot who looked at my unbound pages, asked me, "You want us to do what?!" and then took on the challenge to polish the pages into beautiful books.  I couldn't have created these books without you all!
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