Recognizing the distinct difficulty that the vision impaired community has with the current form of paper currency, our engineering group implemented an idea to aid them. The seeing impaired has no method to distinguish between the different denominations of paper currency now being distributed by the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Problems arise when a seeing-impaired person participates in everyday activities such as buying a soda or purchasing a ticket. Such a person has no choice but to believe that the vendor or salesman is handing them the correct change. In an effort to curb this trickery that occurs during these exchanges of money, we have created a form of tactile currency that all vision impaired individuals can easily discern and feel comfortable with. This tactile currency will be available to all, but will directly aid those who have difficulty with their vision such as the blind and the elderly.
The notion of creating a currency for the blind community has been suggested before. Since June of 1971 many bills have been presented to the United States Congress in favor of producing currency that can be identified by blind or visually impaired individuals. With the foreseen difficulty of Braille stamping and its questionable durability on paper currency, the concept of producing an electronic means to identify currency was introduced. Some companies and manufacturers have explored the option of attaching or incorporating such a product to the traditional Braille ‘N Speak that many visually impaired individuals already own. This would involve a hand- held unit that would be given to the visually impaired enabling them the ability to scan the bill and have it enunciate its value. Due to the expense of such a system, the United States has been reluctant to modify the currency in this way despite the protests of such influential organizations as the American Foundation for the Blind.
Other methods of making the bill tactilely recognizable were developed such as “varying the size of bills for each denomination, using different colors for each denomination, embossing bills with ‘braille’ dots, and punching holes or clipping corners to denote various denominations” (Marshall 1). These have all been met with equal reluctance. The United States fears that the general public would be uncomfortable and feel unsettled by such a change in the currency.
After researching the previous attempts at currency, we decided to garner support for the seeing impaired community, most notably the American Council of the Blind. From the ACB, we received aid from Jim Doherty. Also a member of the DC Council of the Blind, Mr. Doherty encouraged our beliefs to abandon Braille stamping and concentrate on generic bar coding. He informed us that the increasing number of visually impaired individuals derive from the elderly who would have no time or desire to learn Braille to read their currency. Mr. Doherty also asked us to direct our attention to the difficulties that may arise when the bill is inserted into vending and farecard machines. His steady supply of information and names of those interested in what we were trying to accomplish greatly benefited the background of our project. Through Mr. Doherty’s assistance, Scott Marshall, the Associate Director for the American Legislative Affairs, contacted us for the American Foundation for the Blind. Mr. Marshall supplied us with information regarding the previous attempts to gain Congressional support for a method of tactile currency.
After carefully researching our choice of a special need with regards to hand- eye coordination, we decided to officially address the concern of the United States paper currency. We created a schedule of tasks to follow to achieve our ultimate goal (Appendix). It was our desire to create a form of tactile currency that allows everyone to interpret the bill’s denomination by mere touching it. We strove to improve the previous ideas of tactile currency by adding our engineering skills to the bills through a metal strip.