The work is an effort to create educational models for the visually impaired. The team has extended its horizons beyond microscopic data. Co-investigator Veronica Burrows is a professor of engineering. She produces models of phase diagrams, commonly used in chemistry classes. Instead of scanning an existing object, Burrows generates the model from computer data.
Students place a metal crosshair along tick marks on the diagram in order to interpret the data.
In the future, tactile modeling could be used to help students study almost any subject, not just the sciences. Razdan hopes that tactile models will become a regular component of classroom materials. Razdan believes that tactile modeling is helpful even for students who can peer through a microscope. The scanning probe microscope works in a tactile mode. It touches and feels the surface of the object.