Thursday

The Tactile Universe is an innovative public engagement project by the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation (University of Portsmouth), which is using 3D printed models of galaxies to engage the vision impaired community with galaxies research. We believe this is the first project of its kind, that aims to directly engage this community with current cutting-edge research, instead of simply conveying basic topics within astronomy.

A six month pilot project funded by the South East Physics Network culminated in January 2017 with an event for the vision impaired community in Portsmouth. At this event participants were able to explore the shapes of different galaxies using 3D printed images created from real data. We are now moving into Phase Two of the project where we will be expanding in a number of ways, including developing schools workshops using our existing 3D models, increasing the project’s geographical reach, and creating new props and demos using tactile and audio elements.

In this talk we will provide an overview of the project (including the opportunity to interact with the props that were developed) and summarise the lessons learnt to date about how to engage with this traditionally hard-to-reach audience.