HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. — Students and Cincinnati's Clovernook Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired are partnering to bring children's books to life. 

Northern Kentucky University (NKU) student Annie Ortenzi is taking traditional African stories and designing accompanying objects for blind students across Africa.

She said she initially signed up for the class to learn a new skill.

“I'd never really dabbled in 3D printing before, so I just felt that it would be a cool learning experience and a good opportunity to actually make a difference," Ortenzi said. 

The NKU junior said she’s always had a love for stories involving the ocean, which is why she selected her specific folk tale.

"This was a great opportunity for me to work with something that I also enjoyed as well, which was [a] cute little octopus and shark," Ortenzi said. 

The stories come from the African Storybook initiative, which offers a database of thousands of locally authored stories from African countries.

“My story is called 'Let's Dive,'" Ortenzi said. "It's an aquatic story. I wanted to use figures that were articulated.”

An articulated object is connected by a flexible joint, ultimately making loose movements and making the objects more real. Samuel Foulkes, Clovernook director of braille production, said the partnership with NKU can help spark a child's imagination. 

"Storybooks often have illustrations; the illustrations are part of the story," Foulkes said. "They can be fun, engaging; they can teach, they can instruct. To just do the story in Braille is to lose a part of the story.”

Ortenzi said she’s glad to have impacted someone else’s life.

“We do a project for a class, but it doesn't go anywhere outside of that class," she said. "Through this, I got to make an actual difference.”

Thanks to students such as Ortenzi and Clovernook's work, visually impaired children can still engage with literature and be free to imagine.