How a blind man made it possible for others with low vision to build Lego sets

Summary

NEWTON, Mass. (AP) — Like a lot of young children, Matthew Shifrin loved building Lego sets. But because he was blind, Shifrin had to rely on friends and family to help him complete his creations — sometimes bribing them with tea to get them to come by his house.That all changed when he was 13. A family friend and babysitter came over to his house in Newton, Massachusetts and handed him a binder filled with accessible instructions for building a Middle Eastern palace. The instructions, written in braille, allowed him to complete the set without having to rely on the brightly colored pictures that typically come with Lego sets. Matthew Shifrin, the founder of Bricks for the Blind, listens to directions on his phone while building a LEGO gum ball machine at his family’s home, Friday, March 20, 2026, in Newton, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa) “This was the first time that I was able to build a Lego set on my own,” Shifrin said at his home, surrounded by sets he has built including a Statue of Liberty figurine and NASA’s Apollo Saturn V rocket. “It was truly an amazing experience because I was completely in control of the whole building process. I knew where the pieces went and I was able to learn about the world around me.” Inspired to reach more blind Lego buildersAfter Shifrin’s babysitter died, he wanted to honor her memory. So he set about fine-tuning the instructions the two had posted online to reach other blind builders. Three years ago, Shifrin launched Bricks for the Blind. The 28-year-old now works with a team of 30 sighted writers and blind testers. His website makes the downloadable instructions available for free to anyone who’s blind or visually impaired. They can either print the step-by-step instructions in braille, use braille computers or turn to screen readers, which are software applications that convert the text into speech. Matthew Shifrin, the founder of Bricks for the Blind, reads from a braille terminal while building a LEGO project at his famil...