Three students in Greater Noida built TACTO — a device that teaches coding through touch, sensors, and audio feedback, no screen needed. It just won top honours at a global competition in Hong Kong, beating 19 teams from 10 countries.

For most people learning to code today, the starting point is a screen. A cursor blinks, blocks of colour shift, and feedback arrives visually, instantly. 

It is a setup so standard that it rarely gets questioned. But for learners with visual impairments, that single assumption — that a screen is simply part of coding — has quietly kept them out of one of the most consequential skill sets of the 21st century.

Why coding tools need to work beyond screens 

India is home to around 4.95 million blind people and 35 million visually impaired people, making up nearly one-fourth of the world’s visually impaired population. For many of them, learning to code can feel out of reach from the very first step, especially when the tools available depend so heavily on sight.

The difficulty often begins much before a student reaches a coding class. Many visually impaired children are gently pushed away from science and technology early in school, sometimes through small comments, sometimes through larger institutional choices. 

Over time, they begin to hear the same message again and again: this subject may be too difficult, or this field may have no place for them.

For a learner, that can be deeply discouraging. It means losing access to subjects that could open doors to confidence, careers and independence. By the time coding enters the picture, many students have already spent years being told, directly or indirectly, that STEM is meant for someone else.

Most beginner coding tools do little to change that feeling. They are designed around screens, colours, blocks, error messages and visual outputs. Screen readers help many blind users, but early coding platforms still expect learners to follow what appears on a screen, which can make the first lessons confusing and isolating.

This is where the gap becomes very real. In many parts of India and the Global South, only a small number of visually impaired students have access to learning tools that use touch, sound and interaction. 

Without those tools, a student’s interest in technology can fade long before they get a fair chance to explore it.

How buttons, sensors and audio become a coding lesson 

TACTO uses buttons, sensors, and audio feedback to help visually impaired learners understand foundational coding concepts through touch and sensory interaction. 

Rather than asking a student to read code on a screen or follow visual cues, the device makes the logic of programming tangible — something that can be felt, pressed, and heard. 

Concepts like sequencing, loops, and conditionals, which underpin all coding, are delivered through experience rather than sight.

The approach aligns closely with how learning researchers understand knowledge acquisition in multisensory environments: that understanding is deeper when learners engage physically with an idea rather than observing it passively. 

For visually impaired students especially, tactile and auditory learning pathways are not accommodations — they are the primary channel through which complex ideas are best absorbed.

Source: https://thebetterindia.com/innovation/tacto-students-coding-device-visually-impaired-12050629