Automating the Braille Embossing Machines of the Benjamin Constant Institute

• In Event: Machines and Humans: Risk, Fear and Collaboration

Abstract

In 1983, the Benjamin Constant Institute, Brazil 's largest Braille production center, acquired three large - scale production Braille embossing machines (Puma - Blista Brailletec gGmbH), a complex German electromechanical technology that was assimilated as black box in the institution. A group of highly trained people operated these equipment, and maintained with them intense psychological relation. Ten years later, computerized Braille printers were purchased for small print volumes, and software was created that automated production. Its operators had less expertise because the software provided the technical aspects of transcription. Computerized production was quick and simple. It would therefore be convenient to integrate embossing machines into the computerized production chain. Buying new models of Braille embossing machines would be ideal, but there were no resources, including major adaptations in the printing system to incorporate the new machines. But a major problem was the loss of status of technical experts. The solution was to create, with Brazilian technology, a robot digitizer that pressed the machine buttons, attending the computerized commands. This robot could be replaced by humans, valuing human expertise in more complex situations. This solution gave the Pumas a four-year survival, allowing the importation of new machines to be postponed, and minimizing human problems. When the import happens, the solution is destabilized, and the robot dies. But it is not a death at all: it exhibits a historicity that influences other (i) materialities already expected, but unequally (in) desired.

Authors

• Marcos Fialho Carvalho, UFRJ - HCTE

• Marcia Cristina Andrade Soeiro, HCTE-UFRJ / NCE-UFRJ

• José Antonio Santos Borges, HCTE-UFRJ / NCE-UFRJ

• Eduardo Nazareth Paiva, EDUARDO NAZARETH PAIVA