Engineering team helps bring Bible to the blind

Wed, August 6, 2008 |

People around the world who are blind or visually-impaired will be able to read the Bible thanks to the efforts of a team from Valparaiso University’s College of Engineering who worked with volunteers at a local Lutheran church to redesign and build a Braille printing press.

The new press went into operation this week at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church said Dr. Scott Duncan, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering who began working on the project last fall.

Twenty members of the church have been making Braille Bibles for the past five years as volunteers with Lutheran Braille Workers Inc., a national organization founded in 1943 to meet the spiritual needs of people with visual impairments. More than 7,000 volunteers print Braille Bibles with presses located at nearly 200 churches throughout the country, but the press design is more than half a century old and many presses are nearing the end of their operational lives.

That prompted Valparaiso alumnus Robert Steinglass, a member of Prince of Peace, to contact the College of Engineering and ask for help.

“We were asked for help redesigning the press to make it safer as well as easier for some of the older volunteers to use,” Dr. Duncan said. “This was a good opportunity for the College of Engineering to use its expertise in a project that would make a significant impact on the lives of many people.”

Dan Toborowski, a mechanical engineering major from Newnan, Ga., did much of the design of the improved machine and contributed greatly to manufacturing the press now in operation. Working with Toborowski, Dr. Duncan and Steinglass on the project was Rich Gudino, mechanical technician for the College of Engineering.

Their efforts have resulted in a new press that has better safety guarding, an emergency stop and on-off switch and can be produced at a lower cost, Dr. Duncan said. The team also designed a work surface that allows volunteers to slide page templates from the outlet to the inlet of the machine, making it easier for volunteers who had trouble lifting the template while printing pages.

Rev. Phil Pledger, executive director of Lutheran Braille Workers, said the efforts of Valparaiso's team will benefit the organization and its volunteers.

"It's a safer design and the new press is an easier design to work on, which will really be helpful for our volunteers," Rev. Pledger said.

To make a Bible, Dr. Duncan said volunteers set up the templates for each page of one book and then print the pages in sequence, with each page taking approximately five seconds to make.

While Braille letters are universal, the letters in a language are converted one at a time. That allows the press to print Bibles in any language by switching templates, and Lutheran Braille Workers has produced Bibles in more than 30 languages.

Now that Prince of Peace has its new printing press, Dr. Duncan is hopeful more funding can be secured to assemble additional presses for Lutheran Braille Workers.

Rev. Pledger said that while volunteers are able to produce about 250,000 Bibles each year, the organization has a waiting list for 750,000 Bibles and is looking to expand the number of work sites so that it can meet the demand.

“There is a three to four year backlog on Braille Bibles and there are a lot of these machines that need to be replaced,” Dr. Duncan said. “It would be wonderful to have the funding for more new presses that would allow more people with visual impairments to read the Bible.”

The College of Engineering’s Department of Mechanical Engineering provided funding for the redesign and manufacture of the machine.