Two brothers from Bristol have won international recognition for developing a portable Braille printer that can be built for around £100, offering a more affordable way to produce printed material for blind and partially sighted people. Tom Hunt, 19, and his younger brother Felix, 16, created the device, called BrailleGo!, after becoming aware of the difficulties people and organisations face in accessing Braille documents. The brothers received the Best Start-Up Idea award at the 2026 World Robot Olympiad European Open Championship in Zagreb, Croatia.
Their grandfather, a Yorkshire-born engineer who contributed to the early development of the Jodrell Bank Observatory, lost his sight in his sixties, helping inspire their work. They now plan to release the printer’s design files, code and assembly instructions as an open-source project.
Why the brothers want to make the design free
The judging panel praised the printer’s technical quality, including its 3D design and electronics, as well as the brothers’ teamwork and focus on a real-world problem. Judges also noted that the pair had developed the device independently, without support from a coding or maker club. For Tom, who began studying Design Engineering at the University of Bristol in September, the recognition marked an important moment in a project that involved designing and building a machine capable of producing readable Braille. Instead of focusing on commercialising BrailleGo!, Tom and Felix plan to make its code, design files and assembly instructions freely available as an open-source project. This would allow people in different communities to build the printer, adapt it to their needs and potentially improve the design. Making the plans available could help extend the idea beyond the brothers’ own project, giving schools, community groups and organisations supporting people with sight loss an opportunity to explore a lower-cost approach to Braille printing.
BrailleGo! is a compact device designed to produce short-run Braille documents, including children’s books, museum guides, public information leaflets and meeting agendas. The brothers developed it under the team name Hunt Robotics, using readily available components and 3D-printed parts to keep the cost down.
The event brought together 220 national-winning teams from 45 countries under the theme Robots Meet Culture, which challenged participants to explore how technology could improve access to arts, heritage and cultural experiences.
BrailleGo! also placed second in the Senior Future Innovators category, according to the competition’s results.