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Strategy

Create Embosser Ready Graphs Directly From Desmos

Use this amazing BETA feature from Desmos online calculator to create beautiful embosser ready graphs.

We all know the importance of accessible materials for our blind and low vision students. So much time and hard work whether it be from a TVI, Braillest or any other support staff goes into producing these materials especially when it comes to highly visual subjects like Math and Science. The production of tactile graphs is so important for our students but can also be extremely time consuming. For these reasons I am constantly investigating any process, tricks or programs that can cut the time and complexity of these tasks. That’s why this beta feature from Desmos is so exciting. Desmos is a free online graphing calculator. Desmos in many ways has been paving the way when it comes to their approach and integration of accessibility. We are going to focus on their new beta feature which allows production of a beautiful embosser ready graph from simply inputing an equation. We will go step by step through this process which is also demonstrated in the instructional video below. Hopefully this will become another reliable process that can be part of your tool box and might even save some of your weekends and nights from the always present materials prep cloud that looms for many of us.

  1. Go to https://www.desmos.com/calculator?embosserSupport (this is the usual graphing calculator page, and turns on the experimental embosser export feature)
  2. Graph any equation, e.g. y=x^2
  3. Click the “Share” button in the top right and choose “Export Image”
  4. There’s a dropdown for “size” that will include 2 embosser options at the end. Pick either “VP Max” or “ETC Juliet 120”
  5. There will be directions there based on your embosser.

By Neal Mckenzie

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