Online symposium with touch: An attempt to organise an online 3D model tactile symposium for the visually impaired

We have been providing a service for the visually impaired to print out arbitrary models with a 3D printer. We have held a series of symposiums over the past three years to raise awareness of this service and to delve into its significance. Initially, the first symposium was conducted in an ordinary hands-on style with 3D models circulating on-site. However, from the second symposium, the Corona disaster forced the transition to an online event. We adopted the approach of shipping 3D models to those who wished to receive them in advance at the online symposium. This report describes what we learned from this experiment, especially its unexpected effectiveness and the burden of implementation. For visually impaired participants, the combination of an online symposium and the shipping of 3D models in advance seem to have a more hands-on aspect than a conventional symposium which models are circulated at the venue.