Maggie Lindsay
Every year, thousands of blind middle and high school students across the US struggle in their
math classes because they don’t have the right calculator built specifically for them. I was one of
those students. When I was in 7th grade, my vision loss started to get bad enough that I could no
longer read regularly sized font, even with magnification. I started using audiobooks in my
English and history classes to do my homework. But I couldn’t use audiobooks to do Algebra.
Since I couldn’t read math Braille at the time, my teacher and dad and I came up with a solution
that didn’t require any Braille. I solved the equations step by step in my head and my dad wrote
down on a whiteboard what I told him for each step. Then when the whiteboard was full, we took
pictures of it so my teacher could grade my work off the pictures. I didn’t have a calculator at the
time but if I’d had one to do the arithmetic my homework could have gone much faster. But at
least I was able to do my algebra homework.
When I got into high school, I started doing algebra that was too complicated for me to do the
arithmetic in my head. So, I tried using the Calculator app on my I-phone, but it was hard to use.
I had to scroll around the screen looking for each button which made doing my homework take
up to 3 times as long as it did for my sighted peers. Eventually, I got a Ti-84 graphing calculator
with some extra buttons added above the screen to allow it to have audio output for my calculus
classes. But it was a little better. It had buttons, but they were too small and close together for
me to differentiate them easily. I had to memorize which button was which and I often pressed
the wrong ones because I miscounted how far they were from each other.
I could use that calculator faster than the app on my phone because it had physical buttons but it
still took me longer to do my homework than my sighted peers. I needed a calculator specifically for blind
people with large buttons that have Braille or other tactile markers on them and audio output
that is built-in instead of being added on later. I needed what Stem Engine is building.
If I’d had a scientific calculator like the ones Stem Engine is building all the way back in 7th grade
I could have done my math homework much faster. The calculator would have taken away the
burden of trying to multiply negative numbers together correctly while manipulating the
equations in my head. It would have relieved me of the arithmetic burden even more when I got
to 10 th grade and started manipulating the equations in Braille, which I’d learned by then and is
organized very differently from regular math. A calculator from Stem Engine would have also
helped me to participate better in class whenever the teacher asked the class to do quick
calculations. And it would have given me confidence in my math abilities such that I might have
even pursued a math heavy college degree and gone into a STEM career.
Right now, blind students across the country taking math in middle and high school still only
have access to the kinds of tools I had that are not built for them. Many of them experience the
same difficulties I did and have come to believe math is something only sighted people can do.
But Stem Engine’s calculator can change their ability to do arithmetic quickly and give them the
confidence to see that they can do math just like everyone else. With stem Engine’s calculator
in hand, more of them will pursue STEM majors in college and enter STEM careers. Then they
will be able to add their unique ways of seeing the world to the STEM fields they enter and
maybe they will be the ones who create some new technology that makes life better for
everyone.