Refreshable Braille and tactile displays offer blind and low vision users the ability to read braille and tactile graphics directly from a computer application, however these devices are prohibitively expensive. This is due to the inherent cost  of thousands of individually actuated, precision electromagnetic dots.

Magnepins is a low-cost refreshable braille and tactile display that can be entirely DIY fabricated in a well-equipped makerspace, using inexpensive off the shelf components such as fabric pins. It uses a novel carriage mechanism where large, staggered electromagnetic actuators set pins high, and lock in 3d printed locking channels.