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#2910 DISCUSSION: Bricks for the Blind – Part 1

Today we bring you a very special discussion about Bricks for the Blind (@bricks4theblind) – an incredible non-profit organisation that aims to bring the joy of building LEGO to as many visually impaired people as possible!

Today we bring you a special discussion about Bricks for the Blind (BFTB) – an incredible charity that aims to “bring the joy of building LEGO to as many visually impaired people as possible.” [Footnote 1, see final slide]. Image depicting the BFTB logo that says “You can build this!” alongside two colourful stars with two stages of LEGO building steps. A black brick 2x2 on a light-grey 3x3 plate. Two dark-grey 1x1 bricks and 2 light-grey slopes are added.

Stay tuned for part 2 and let us know what you learned in the comments.

What is BFTB? BFTB is a non-profit organization that brings the joy of LEGO building to visually impaired people! [Footnote 2, see end slide]. Their website provides text-based instructions to guide builders “through the building process”, allowing people with vision challenges to enjoy the “fun, creativity, and relaxation” of LEGO.* *All quotes without a footnote are from the incredible Matthew, the founder and CEO of BTFB, who our very own Shanzy had a one-on-one interview with for this post! The instructions are written by sighted people and tested by visually impaired people – ensuring equal collaboration and the highest standard of instructions! The instructions are then shared on the BFTB website and can be accessed by anyone at any time for free! An image of the Instruction page of the BFTB website. An image of the BFTB logo, with the B made out of colourful bricks and a hand placing the final brick.
Each set of instructions has an excellent description of the set, parts, bags, and contents of the instructions. An image of the BFTB instruction beginning: 42622 Adventure Camp Archery Range Advanced by Allie Morozova and tested by Natalie Charbonneau. This LEGO® Friends Adventure Camp Archery Range (42622) building toy for kids aged 6 and up comes with Autumn and Nova mini dolls, a raccoon and lots of sports playset accessories. Girls and boys can act out target practice for real with this exciting set as the bow actually shoots the arrows. See the target flip down when the arrow hits it! There’s a color-coded difficulty scale so kids can move the target back for a bigger challenge. An image of Set #42622 Adventure Camp Archery Range. Below are two pictures of the same step in the building process of this set, Adventure Camp Archery Range. While the classic pictorial instructions look very simple, there has been a huge amount of work and effort put into the BFTB instructions to ensure absolute clarity! An image of a stage in the LEGO instruction booklet of a green plate with a brown slope, brown log, and a corner lime plate. An image of the BFTB instruction booklet of the same step, as follows: Group 4 – Archery Range 1. Locate 1 green 8x16 plate and place it horizontally in front of you. 2. Locate 1 light brown 1x2 log brick and 1 light brown 1x2 slope brick. Place the slope brick vertically at the back right corner of the green 8x16 plate so that it slopes to the back and there is no overhang. Place the log brick vertically in front of the ppp (previously placed piece). 3. Locate 1 lime 1x2 corner plate and 1 light brown 1x2 log brick. Place the 1x2 log brick vertically in front of the previously placed 1x2 log brick. Place the 1x2 corner plate in front of the ppp so that it's placed like the Braille letter J and its corner aligns with the 8x16 plate’s corner.
Collaboration with LEGO. Quote from Matthew: We work together with LEGO to help bring the brick names, building terms, and ways to clearly and concisely describe the building process together, to produce the best experience. LEGO offers their Audio and Braille instructions online. This service works best when the builder has a sighted person there to help them. An image of Set #41719 Mobile Fashion Boutique. An image of LEGO’s Audio and Braille instructions online, showing the steps of the Mobile Fashion Boutique. But BFTB wants to offer full autonomy to builders. Alongside this, LEGO’s service only has about 120 set instructions compared to BFTB’s 400+ and counting. BFTB are on contract with LEGO to help them with their accessibility initiative!
Motivations behind BFTB. Matthew Shifrin is the founder and CEO of BFTB. He was born blind but has always had a passion for the Arts and languages. An image of Matthew with his collection of LEGO. He’s a musician, performer, author, composer, podcaster, entrepreneur! An image of Matthew’s studio sessions [Footnote 3, see end slide]. An image of Matthew’s tactile LEGO route-map for rock climbing [Footnote 4, see end slide]. Take a look at our end slide bibliography for links to these articles and videos! Matthew is a well-known figure in both the LEGO and blind community and has always been deeply involved in advocating for the improvement of quality of life for blind people.
The Origins of BFTB. Matthew’s friend, Lilya, wrote and gifted him braille instructions for LEGO set Battle of Alamut for his 13th birthday. An image of a younger Matthew with Lilya. After this empowering experience, Matthew and Lilya began creating more instructions and eventually switched from braille to text-based. When Lilya passed away in 2017, Matthew made it his “personal mission” to immortalise her love and compassion by bringing their work to as many people as possible. BFTB became an official autonomous non-profit organisation in 2024 so that they could focus on expanding their writing efforts. An image of Set #7573 Battle of Alamut.
The Creation of BFTB. Quote from Matthew: As a non-profit, we are fueled by donations and a global team of writers and testers. Our goal is to keep pace with LEGO and produce TBI* for ~70% of the sets they release. We see our mission as complimenting LEGO’s production. *Text-based instructions. Head over to the BFTB website for more information in their FAQs, About Us, and How It Works sections! Quote from Matthew: At this pace, we are creating TBI for sets as large as 4,000 pieces and with as few as 50, so again, we serve a wide audience of blind builders. We plan to always keep our older instructions online as well, for those who want to build those sets. An image of a selection of colourful LEGO braille bricks.
More on Matthew. One of Matthew’s favourite sets is the Saturn V Rocket! The writer, Daniel, tested them by blindfolding himself for the entirety of the build! If you want to know more about Matthew and his work, have a look at our end slide for the links to these works! An image of the LEGO Saturn V Rocket set. An image of Matthew’s podcast “Blind Guy Travels” [Footnote 5, see end slide]. An image of Matthew’s documentary “Building Beyond Sight” [Footnote 6, see end slide]. An image of Chapter “Building by Touch and Sound” from book Heroes [Footnote 7, see end slide].
Benefits of LEGO. Quote from Matthew: Building LEGO not only helps with spatial awareness and spatial reasoning, which are skills blind children aren’t often taught, but also helps blind kids get excited about using assistive technology and learning Braille. Quote from Matthew: Building these sets helps blind kids learn about the parts of the world that are too big for them to touch. Quote from Matthew: Bricks For The Blind will be teaching robotics-programming workshops to blind kids around the country using LEGO’s Spike robot. An image of a giant LEGO braille storage box filled with LEGO braille bricks. An image of the LEGO Spike robot. An image of LEGO set Statue of Liberty. Our previous discussion, #2149, goes into more detail on LEGO braille!
Getting Involved. If you’re interested in getting involved and becoming a BFTB writer or tester, email: info@bricksfortheblind.org! You will be sent a guide that explains the role you are interested in and the process of writing instructions (for sighted individuals) or set-testing (for blind builders). Spread the word! Tell everyone you know about BFTB. Use social media to link to our website and channels. We want every blind person to know that they can build LEGO sets. While there is no obligation to, if you’d like to donate to help support the work that BFTB is doing, you can do so here! An image of the BFTB GoFundMe website, link here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/bricks-for-the-blind-gofundme.
Stay Tuned! Quote from T&B Team Member Shanzy: Writing my first set of text-based instructions was a great experience. I was challenged to think very critically about how I build to match BFTB terminology to properly express each visual LEGO step. Quote from Shanzy: I found it very helpful to have other text-based instructions open while I wrote mine, to look for the names/descriptions of parts and ways that similar builds were worded. A second post will go into more detail about what the BFTB roles entail! How else do you think LEGO could become more inclusive? Let us know your thoughts in the comments! An image of T&B Team Member Shanzy.

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