# Students at Argentine school build prototype braille printer that deposits wax drops on paper

- Published: 2026-11-06 02:06 UTC
- Section: Industry & People › Education
- Tags: braille printer, Points de Cire, depilatory wax, thermal wax deposition, Escuela Técnica N° 1 de Puan, recycled components, PointsApp, Science Fair Argentina, low-cost braille
- URL: https://realtech.media/news/rt-f2a13a7d90a7323df0de3f41_students_at_argentine/

**Five students of a technical school in Buenos Aires province built Points de Cire, a prototype that raises braille dots with depilatory wax on ordinary paper without mechanical impacts.**

![Students at Argentine school build prototype braille printer that deposits wax drops on paper](https://sgzwpqqelzmajkcubgkl.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/rt-media/2026/11/d9fef82b94883b50.webp)
*AGENCIAFE*

Five students of Escuela Técnica N° 1 de Puan, in Buenos Aires province, Argentina, developed a prototype braille printer that marks paper with depilatory wax, AGENCIAFE reports. The project is called Points de Cire ("wax dots" in French) and was built from recycled electronic components. [1]

The authors are Gerónimo Purretta (17), Julieta Marcolin, Magaly Rodríguez and Fermina Camor Raj (all 16), and Jazmín Peters (18), fifth-year students. Teacher Marcos Chávez proposed a printer or braille typewriter as the annual project. Before building, the students visited Escuela Especial 501, spoke with a girl learning braille and her teachers, and interviewed the directors of the braille libraries in Bahía Blanca and La Plata. According to the students, all of them asked for a cheaper, quieter device that works with ordinary paper. [1]

## Thermal wax deposition instead of impacts

The printer has no mechanical impacts. Motors move the head under electronic control, while a mechanism melts the wax and releases it as microdrops onto plain paper. A fan cools the drops, which solidify into raised dots that can be read by touch. The students say the temperature is held near 135 °C, the machine runs almost silently, and its production cost is lower than that of commercial equipment. [1]

Before settling on depilatory wax, the team tried paint, varnish, nail polish, 3D-printer filament (it required temperatures that were too high), beeswax and sealing wax. Some materials clogged the small nozzle; others produced dots that were too large or hard to control. Wax sold as pearls proved easier to feed into the printer than canned wax, which had to be melted and made into cartridges. The students report that a printed sheet kept for hours at 60 °C did not lose the shape of its dots; they are still testing material mixtures. [1]

## Own software and prototype status

The work was divided by specialty: mechanics and component recycling, electronics and temperature control, programming. The first mechanism prototype was 3D-printed, and classmates from the Electromechanics program machined an aluminum part on a lathe. At first the team used a French program that produced inverted print instructions, which then had to be corrected and passed to a second program that drove the motors. They replaced this chain with their own application, PointsApp: the user types text or imports a PDF, and the program translates it to braille and sends the code to the printer. [1]

Points de Cire remains a prototype. The authors say it needs more calibration and technical adjustments, in both the software and the printer's structure, before home or school use. The project has passed the regional and provincial stages of the Science Fair; in November the students will represent Buenos Aires province at the national stage in Córdoba. [1]

## Sources

1. [AGENCIAFE](https://agenciafe.com/nota/403794-Estudiantes-argentinos-crearon-una-impresora-braille)

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Source: RealTech, realtech.media — https://realtech.media/news/rt-f2a13a7d90a7323df0de3f41_students_at_argentine/