December 17, 2025 • 11 mins
Daniel Lubiner, shares his story of creating the Braille Doodle with Peter Greco, thus enabling easier ways to learn braille for students, teachers and carers. You can purchase the Braille Doodle from Vision Australia.
More info: The TouchPad Pro Foundation
Vision Australia: The Braille Doodle
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:13):
Let's talk about the Pro doodle. And in fact, the
person who invented it is Daniel Lubner Daniel's in New York.
And we go there and speak to him right now. Daniel,
welcome to Vision Radio and thank you for your time.
S2 (00:26):
Oh thank you. It's an honor to be here. Thank
you so much.
S1 (00:29):
Tell us a bit about the background to this. How
why did you invent the brand? And also, of course,
your you're the founder director for TouchPad Pro Foundation.
S2 (00:39):
So I was a teacher for like over 20 years.
I did all kinds of teaching, special education. And then
in the last years I was teaching, I was teaching
the blind and low vision here in the Bronx, in
New York City. Uh, those students, like, inspired me every
single day. I absolutely loved that job. You know, they
(01:00):
they helped me see that that blindness to them wasn't
an obstacle. They didn't want to be defined by their blindness.
They were just kids. They were just, you know, teenagers. And,
you know, it was very inspirational. And then the pandemic hit.
So overnight, all my students went home, right? They couldn't
they couldn't do our you know, we had to try
(01:22):
and get them on zooms and stuff. And I was
thinking like, how are they learning Braille now? And the
answer was they weren't learning it very well. So with
no tactile tools at home, they couldn't learn Braille, couldn't
draw up and explore. And, you know, then I found
out this isn't just a pandemic problem. This is a
(01:45):
worldwide like catastrophe when it comes to literacy and tactile
tools and things are just too expensive or they don't exist.
Things like this don't exist. So I started fiddling around and,
you know, with cardboard and duct tape and my exacto
knife and some toy that I discovered from Amazon, and
(02:10):
I started making the Braille doodle. So the Braille doodle
is a two sided tablet. It has no batteries, no internet.
I'm holding it now, so I will be here. What's
in it? It's like the size of a laptop. And
there's hundreds and hundreds of little holes. And inside every
(02:31):
little hole is a metal bead that pops up when
you drag a magnetic stylus across. So one side is like,
you know, you could draw on it and do maps,
and the other side leads you along, like as a
teacher to learn Braille one letter at a time. So
(02:53):
it's really like no pressure. You just learning those letters
one at a time. So and the drawing side opens
up a whole slew of things, like you could do, uh, graphs, uh, maps,
like I said, um, Stem activities, like all these things
(03:13):
that people are thinking of.
S1 (03:15):
And I guess the kind of two sided approach, if
I can call it that. Daniel means that, you know, learning, uh,
Braille one at a time. Great for teachers, but maybe
great for parents or grandparents or carers.
S2 (03:26):
Absolutely. So the idea was like with the pandemic. And
then I learned, like some countries, like in India, like
less than 1% of blind kids are learning Braille. Yeah.
So how can they get something at home, you know,
that they could start, you know, and I'm not talking about, like,
learning how to read, like Moby Dick or anything. You know,
(03:51):
just learning how to read a few letters at a
time and opening the door to literacy, you know, saying like,
it's out there. It's it's possible. So can they do
something with their minds, with their sisters? And, you know,
this makes it possible.
S1 (04:08):
And Daniel, the, uh, the touchpad itself or the Braille
doodle itself, I should say it's all tactile. There's no
kind of voice interaction or no voice feedback from it?
S2 (04:19):
No, not at all. It's it's purely plastic, metal and magnets.
It's pure mechanical. So there's nothing to plug in. There's
no internet, you know, it's just the magnet pulls up
these beads and the beads stay up just right because
underneath all the beads, like on one side, there's 1333 beads.
(04:43):
Underneath each one is a little spring that allows it
to stay up just right. So you could touch it
like 20 times and they won't fall down, but give
them a little extra push and they fall down.
S1 (04:57):
I guess kids are kids like kids are kids all
over the world. Daniel, what about in terms of its
sturdiness or its durability?
S2 (05:05):
Yeah, well, that's something that we definitely want to keep
in mind with all these, uh, especially with all these
babies inside. And so we, uh, we really gave it
a thorough testing. So it's tested like a toy. so
it had to go through all the toy testing. So
they pull it, they drop it. They have, you know,
(05:26):
they test all the plastics. You know, they have to
drop it multiple times from like five different heights. So yeah,
we're we're trying to make it as durable as possible.
One thing that's awesome is we had hundreds go out
the first fungus go out and we've had like like
no complaints. Um, off of those hundreds. So that was
(05:50):
really cool.
S1 (05:50):
Then you one of the great things that's happening more
and more these days, of course, is the, uh, as
you said, the kind of, uh, development or inclusion of Stem, um,
into the education system. And you make a great point
about being able to kind of, uh, draw with it,
if you like, because of course, you can read as
much as you like. But sometimes to understand or to
get the concept of a shape in your head, if
(06:13):
you're a person who's blind or and has never seen
it to be able to feel it, I mean, there's
the answer.
S2 (06:19):
Yeah. In fact, it comes with stencils. So these stencils
or overlays go on top and you're able to like
feel what a house and a tree feels like. So
if I ask somebody who's been blind since birth, like
what's taller, a house or a tree?
S1 (06:37):
Yeah.
S2 (06:38):
They may not know because they've never, you know, you
feel a house under a tree from the outside, but
what is the roof feel like? What is the the chimney.
Where where does Santa go in? You know, where does
where is he land? Um, you know, all these things
like and perspective. And then you get into graphs, like
(06:59):
if you just have simple graphs like, uh, you know,
there's ten cats, five dogs, seven horses, and you make
a bar graph for that, and then you say, well,
what if the cats had three kittens? Then what would happen?
S1 (07:17):
Yeah.
S2 (07:18):
Now there's nothing that could do that. There's nothing that
allows the student to actually change the graph and manipulate
the graph like that instantaneously. Or you could just erase it,
you know, and bring it back up, you know, by
the way you erase it just by pushing down on
(07:39):
the things or swiping it with the stylus. Everything disappears,
you know? So you could do it over and over
and over again. So yeah, it's it's really exciting time
for us. We we just had a viral video go
online with this adult who was talking about, you know,
he was so happy about being able to draw. He
(08:01):
was a blind father, young, young guy who was like
full of energy, like, I'm blind. And this is how
I do art with my kid.
S1 (08:11):
She's. That is such a powerful message.
S2 (08:13):
Got an 11 million views now. Wow. I think over
12 million views. So it's like, whoa, that was nuts. That's. Yeah. yeah.
S1 (08:23):
I mean, they'd be they'd be perfect. We'd thought that,
you know, we'd be doing that kind of every minute
of the day with their kids. But as you say,
for someone who's blind up until the brow doodle, there
hasn't really been an opportunity for a parent to be
able to do that.
S2 (08:37):
Right. And you see, that's very touching. Uh, yeah. You know,
that touched my heart when I first heard about it
and was like thinking of the concept a long time ago.
And I think that's why, you know, it's like near
12 million views is because it does touch people's heart,
you know, things like this. I mean, I don't know,
(08:59):
I thank my students, you know, and I thank God
that something put this in my head. And I was
able to go through with it. And it's it's great.
And you have to just like there's been times where like,
I've been in tears. I want to throw this thing
against the wall, you know, uh, but, you know, it's
(09:21):
it's gone through failures, believe me, the first drop test
didn't go too well. You know.
S1 (09:27):
You've had tears of frustration, but also tears of joy.
Are you Daniel? Before you go? We're rapidly running out
of time. We'll have to get you back to talk again.
What about the name? How'd you come up with the name?
Or who came up with the name?
S2 (09:39):
Braille doodles. So you know, the one side doing Braille
and the one side you can doodle on it. And
I think it was like, sort of like etching. Etch
a sketch, you know, like, for fun. We call it
like the etch A sketch for the blind, you know? But, um. Yeah.
So that's how we came out. I think it was
first it was like the Braille and doodle, and my
(10:01):
wife was like, just make a Braille doodle. So I
think my wife helped with that one. Oh, well.
S1 (10:06):
What could I give her a shout out.
S2 (10:08):
Oh, yeah. Moira. Yeah. She's been terrific, uh, supporting all
of this, I believe me.
S1 (10:15):
Also, I should shout out to Tony Woo who put
us on to you. Well, we spoke to Tony earlier
in the year when he came to Adelaide with the
doodle for Tech Fest. So if people want to find
out more, what's your website? Daniella said, we'll get you
back and we'll chat more. But this is very exciting
and I can just tell with the few minutes we've
had with you, your passion for it and your, uh,
the amount of energy you've put into it is wonderful.
(10:37):
So how can we find out more?
S2 (10:39):
Well, now you can just go to Google.org and that
will take us to the website. So that's a Braille doodle.
S1 (10:48):
I Daniel, if you could send me the link to
that YouTube video, that'd be great because we'll put that
up with our show notes so people can just go
to that and, and check out that, uh, that video
and we'll get it the first early on the weekends.
S2 (11:02):
Yep. Okay. Terrific.
S1 (11:05):
Great to meet you. Thank you for your time.
S2 (11:07):
Oh, it's a pleasure, Peter. Thanks.
S1 (11:09):
That's the day you leave it in there for the
Touch Pad Pro Foundation. Talk about the Braille doodle and, uh,
all that information up with our show notes, but, uh, well,
that's certainly quite a great way to, uh, have a
bit of a chat about something that's really, really important,
inclusive and helping kids with their education. And they're probably
having fun as well.
Let's talk about the Pro doodle. And in fact, the
person who invented it is Daniel Lubner Daniel's in New York.
And we go there and speak to him right now. Daniel,
welcome to Vision Radio and thank you for your time.
S2 (00:26):
Oh thank you. It's an honor to be here. Thank
you so much.
S1 (00:29):
Tell us a bit about the background to this. How
why did you invent the brand? And also, of course,
your you're the founder director for TouchPad Pro Foundation.
S2 (00:39):
So I was a teacher for like over 20 years.
I did all kinds of teaching, special education. And then
in the last years I was teaching, I was teaching
the blind and low vision here in the Bronx, in
New York City. Uh, those students, like, inspired me every
single day. I absolutely loved that job. You know, they
(01:00):
they helped me see that that blindness to them wasn't
an obstacle. They didn't want to be defined by their blindness.
They were just kids. They were just, you know, teenagers. And,
you know, it was very inspirational. And then the pandemic hit.
So overnight, all my students went home, right? They couldn't
they couldn't do our you know, we had to try
(01:22):
and get them on zooms and stuff. And I was
thinking like, how are they learning Braille now? And the
answer was they weren't learning it very well. So with
no tactile tools at home, they couldn't learn Braille, couldn't
draw up and explore. And, you know, then I found
out this isn't just a pandemic problem. This is a
(01:45):
worldwide like catastrophe when it comes to literacy and tactile
tools and things are just too expensive or they don't exist.
Things like this don't exist. So I started fiddling around and,
you know, with cardboard and duct tape and my exacto
knife and some toy that I discovered from Amazon, and
(02:10):
I started making the Braille doodle. So the Braille doodle
is a two sided tablet. It has no batteries, no internet.
I'm holding it now, so I will be here. What's
in it? It's like the size of a laptop. And
there's hundreds and hundreds of little holes. And inside every
(02:31):
little hole is a metal bead that pops up when
you drag a magnetic stylus across. So one side is like,
you know, you could draw on it and do maps,
and the other side leads you along, like as a
teacher to learn Braille one letter at a time. So
(02:53):
it's really like no pressure. You just learning those letters
one at a time. So and the drawing side opens
up a whole slew of things, like you could do, uh, graphs, uh, maps,
like I said, um, Stem activities, like all these things
(03:13):
that people are thinking of.
S1 (03:15):
And I guess the kind of two sided approach, if
I can call it that. Daniel means that, you know, learning, uh,
Braille one at a time. Great for teachers, but maybe
great for parents or grandparents or carers.
S2 (03:26):
Absolutely. So the idea was like with the pandemic. And
then I learned, like some countries, like in India, like
less than 1% of blind kids are learning Braille. Yeah.
So how can they get something at home, you know,
that they could start, you know, and I'm not talking about, like,
learning how to read, like Moby Dick or anything. You know,
(03:51):
just learning how to read a few letters at a
time and opening the door to literacy, you know, saying like,
it's out there. It's it's possible. So can they do
something with their minds, with their sisters? And, you know,
this makes it possible.
S1 (04:08):
And Daniel, the, uh, the touchpad itself or the Braille
doodle itself, I should say it's all tactile. There's no
kind of voice interaction or no voice feedback from it?
S2 (04:19):
No, not at all. It's it's purely plastic, metal and magnets.
It's pure mechanical. So there's nothing to plug in. There's
no internet, you know, it's just the magnet pulls up
these beads and the beads stay up just right because
underneath all the beads, like on one side, there's 1333 beads.
(04:43):
Underneath each one is a little spring that allows it
to stay up just right. So you could touch it
like 20 times and they won't fall down, but give
them a little extra push and they fall down.
S1 (04:57):
I guess kids are kids like kids are kids all
over the world. Daniel, what about in terms of its
sturdiness or its durability?
S2 (05:05):
Yeah, well, that's something that we definitely want to keep
in mind with all these, uh, especially with all these
babies inside. And so we, uh, we really gave it
a thorough testing. So it's tested like a toy. so
it had to go through all the toy testing. So
they pull it, they drop it. They have, you know,
(05:26):
they test all the plastics. You know, they have to
drop it multiple times from like five different heights. So yeah,
we're we're trying to make it as durable as possible.
One thing that's awesome is we had hundreds go out
the first fungus go out and we've had like like
no complaints. Um, off of those hundreds. So that was
(05:50):
really cool.
S1 (05:50):
Then you one of the great things that's happening more
and more these days, of course, is the, uh, as
you said, the kind of, uh, development or inclusion of Stem, um,
into the education system. And you make a great point
about being able to kind of, uh, draw with it,
if you like, because of course, you can read as
much as you like. But sometimes to understand or to
get the concept of a shape in your head, if
(06:13):
you're a person who's blind or and has never seen
it to be able to feel it, I mean, there's
the answer.
S2 (06:19):
Yeah. In fact, it comes with stencils. So these stencils
or overlays go on top and you're able to like
feel what a house and a tree feels like. So
if I ask somebody who's been blind since birth, like
what's taller, a house or a tree?
S1 (06:37):
Yeah.
S2 (06:38):
They may not know because they've never, you know, you
feel a house under a tree from the outside, but
what is the roof feel like? What is the the chimney.
Where where does Santa go in? You know, where does
where is he land? Um, you know, all these things
like and perspective. And then you get into graphs, like
(06:59):
if you just have simple graphs like, uh, you know,
there's ten cats, five dogs, seven horses, and you make
a bar graph for that, and then you say, well,
what if the cats had three kittens? Then what would happen?
S1 (07:17):
Yeah.
S2 (07:18):
Now there's nothing that could do that. There's nothing that
allows the student to actually change the graph and manipulate
the graph like that instantaneously. Or you could just erase it,
you know, and bring it back up, you know, by
the way you erase it just by pushing down on
(07:39):
the things or swiping it with the stylus. Everything disappears,
you know? So you could do it over and over
and over again. So yeah, it's it's really exciting time
for us. We we just had a viral video go
online with this adult who was talking about, you know,
he was so happy about being able to draw. He
(08:01):
was a blind father, young, young guy who was like
full of energy, like, I'm blind. And this is how
I do art with my kid.
S1 (08:11):
She's. That is such a powerful message.
S2 (08:13):
Got an 11 million views now. Wow. I think over
12 million views. So it's like, whoa, that was nuts. That's. Yeah. yeah.
S1 (08:23):
I mean, they'd be they'd be perfect. We'd thought that,
you know, we'd be doing that kind of every minute
of the day with their kids. But as you say,
for someone who's blind up until the brow doodle, there
hasn't really been an opportunity for a parent to be
able to do that.
S2 (08:37):
Right. And you see, that's very touching. Uh, yeah. You know,
that touched my heart when I first heard about it
and was like thinking of the concept a long time ago.
And I think that's why, you know, it's like near
12 million views is because it does touch people's heart,
you know, things like this. I mean, I don't know,
(08:59):
I thank my students, you know, and I thank God
that something put this in my head. And I was
able to go through with it. And it's it's great.
And you have to just like there's been times where like,
I've been in tears. I want to throw this thing
against the wall, you know, uh, but, you know, it's
(09:21):
it's gone through failures, believe me, the first drop test
didn't go too well. You know.
S1 (09:27):
You've had tears of frustration, but also tears of joy.
Are you Daniel? Before you go? We're rapidly running out
of time. We'll have to get you back to talk again.
What about the name? How'd you come up with the name?
Or who came up with the name?
S2 (09:39):
Braille doodles. So you know, the one side doing Braille
and the one side you can doodle on it. And
I think it was like, sort of like etching. Etch
a sketch, you know, like, for fun. We call it
like the etch A sketch for the blind, you know? But, um. Yeah.
So that's how we came out. I think it was
first it was like the Braille and doodle, and my
(10:01):
wife was like, just make a Braille doodle. So I
think my wife helped with that one. Oh, well.
S1 (10:06):
What could I give her a shout out.
S2 (10:08):
Oh, yeah. Moira. Yeah. She's been terrific, uh, supporting all
of this, I believe me.
S1 (10:15):
Also, I should shout out to Tony Woo who put
us on to you. Well, we spoke to Tony earlier
in the year when he came to Adelaide with the
doodle for Tech Fest. So if people want to find
out more, what's your website? Daniella said, we'll get you
back and we'll chat more. But this is very exciting
and I can just tell with the few minutes we've
had with you, your passion for it and your, uh,
the amount of energy you've put into it is wonderful.
(10:37):
So how can we find out more?
S2 (10:39):
Well, now you can just go to Google.org and that
will take us to the website. So that's a Braille doodle.
S1 (10:48):
I Daniel, if you could send me the link to
that YouTube video, that'd be great because we'll put that
up with our show notes so people can just go
to that and, and check out that, uh, that video
and we'll get it the first early on the weekends.
S2 (11:02):
Yep. Okay. Terrific.
S1 (11:05):
Great to meet you. Thank you for your time.
S2 (11:07):
Oh, it's a pleasure, Peter. Thanks.
S1 (11:09):
That's the day you leave it in there for the
Touch Pad Pro Foundation. Talk about the Braille doodle and, uh,
all that information up with our show notes, but, uh, well,
that's certainly quite a great way to, uh, have a
bit of a chat about something that's really, really important,
inclusive and helping kids with their education. And they're probably
having fun as well.
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