The cheapest method of writing Braille by hand is the slate and stylus combo.

• Its cheap so that school students can afford it.
• Does not needs other accessories to function, like electricity, large desk space, etc.
• It is silent and can be used for personal notes taking with full command over it.
• The output is a paper for long term storage and reference.

However, when the idea is to create braille dots by the punching action, the outcome must always be read by flipping the paper. Also this method mandates punching codes in a mirrored format.

Idea

Why not create a slate which produces a positive emboss on a paper when pressed against?

A slate with a grid of protrusions, of certain diameter and heights. The grid spacing and protrusion diameters can be referenced from here. If a paper is kept on this slate, and a soft rubber 'pen' is used to press the paper against the selected protrusion, a positive emboss will be formed. A demonstration test video of the concept here:

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/54c38877-3e72-4678-963d-d901c0d67694/20201030_112124_converted.mp4

However, since we rest our hands on the slate, and palms being soft there is risk of wrongly creating impressions on the places where the palm rests against the paper. Therefore we need some rubber padding between the protrusions so that unless pressed specifically, general pressure will not result in positive embosses.

Also, how could a B/VI person know where to press? Therefor the idea to be tried out is to make the protrusions on a sheet of magnetic material and place a strong magnet on the pen, just behind the soft tip. Thus, the pen will always be directed towards a protrusion and not on the space inbetween.

2 kinds of slates could be created, one for writing only in Braille and the other for drawing. The Braille one could have protrusions only as bunches of 6 dots with spacing in between these 6-dot packs. Whereas the drawing stylus can have uniform grid points all over the paper area. In fact, the same slate can have these 2 sides to it!

Have a plate with many protruding pins to press against and create positive impressions!

Prototype 1

I took a magnetically active metal sheet where i drew a grid on one side. Using a hammer and punch (blunted so as not to puncher the sheet) i tried punching as many as possible.

The protrusions were OK, but not really sharp.