NEWTON, Mass. — Growing up, Matthew Shifrin shared the same passion for constructing Lego creations that countless children experience. However, his blindness meant he constantly needed assistance from relatives and friends to finish his projects — often offering them tea as an incentive to visit and help.
Everything transformed when Shifrin reached age 13. A family friend who also served as his babysitter arrived at his Newton, Massachusetts residence carrying a binder containing accessible building directions for a Middle Eastern palace set. These braille-written instructions enabled him to assemble the entire creation independently, without depending on the vibrant visual guides that normally accompany Lego products.
“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.”
Following his babysitter’s passing, Shifrin decided to preserve her legacy by improving and expanding the instructions they had previously shared online to help other blind builders.
Shifrin established Bricks for the Blind three years ago. The 28-year-old now collaborates with 30 volunteers including sighted writers and blind testers. His platform offers free downloadable directions to anyone experiencing blindness or visual impairment. Users can print the detailed instructions in braille, access them through braille computers, or utilize screen reader software that converts text to spoken words.
While the directions enable independent building for blind users, Shifrin’s platform notes that sighted assistance may be required for sorting Lego pieces. Alternatively, blind builders can use various apps that employ artificial intelligence to identify specific bricks.
The nonprofit organization has developed instructions for over 540 different Lego sets, from simple 100-piece vehicles to complex 4,000-piece structures. Approximately 3,000 builders have utilized these resources throughout the United States and internationally, including users in Australia.
In 2017, Shifrin contacted the Denmark-headquartered Lego Group regarding accessibility improvements for their products, which motivated the company to develop audio and braille instructions for an expanding selection of sets, launching this initiative in 2019.
Additionally, the company released Lego Braille Bricks in 2020, available in French, English, and Spanish, featuring raised studs that represent letters, numbers, and symbols. The company has also incorporated characters with vision loss into various sets.
Shifrin, who pursues careers as an actor, composer, and opera singer, reports receiving numerous messages from individuals who previously couldn’t enjoy building Lego.
He has heard from visually impaired grandparents expressing their newfound ability to construct sets with grandchildren. “We couldn’t build with our kids. They didn’t want our help, but now we can teach our grandkids about Lego,” Shifrin said. “Or blind parents who say, ‘My kids are sighted, they don’t want my help, but it’s amazing to really understand what all this hype about Lego is about because now I can build on my own’”
Daniel Millan, who experienced sight loss in 2024, discovered Bricks for the Blind after a tumor damaged his optic nerves. The 31-year-old graduate student from San Diego, pursuing studies to become an assistive technology instructor, initially completed a Lego ornament set, then assembled a Lego rose set with his wife on their anniversary.
“Being able to do it independently, it’s freedom,” he said, adding that his sudden vision loss left him wondering about what he wouldn’t be able to do again.
Following his Lego building experiences, he realized that “It’s not about what I can’t do anymore. It’s more about what I can do,” he said.
For Natalie Charbonneau, who experiences blindness, these instructions have enabled her to complete sets without depending on her sighted husband’s help. They’ve also allowed her to enjoy activities with her 5-year-old son, building numerous fire trucks and other vehicles together.
“If he has questions, I have the ability to check his work or to follow along instead of saying, ‘You have to wait for your dad’ or ‘You have to ask your dad.’ It’s something that I can now do with him as well, which is empowering,” she said. Charbonneau, who tests products for Bricks for the Blind, is pursuing doctoral studies while residing in Bellingham, Washington.
Teri Turgeon, education director for community programs at Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts — where Shifrin attended as an infant — explained that accessible instructions provide blind children with the same enjoyment as their sighted counterparts. The activity also helps them understand spatial concepts and develop “fine motor and tactile skills.”
“He’s created a space around innovation and accessibility that was otherwise not there prior and he’s done so with a toy that children play with every day,” she said.
At his residence, Shifrin assisted fellow blind builder Minh Ha in constructing a go-kart. Ha selected Lego pieces from two containers and began assembling a driver figure.
“It’s just legs, torso, head, helmet. You’ve built this before. It’s a piece of cake. I believe in you,” Shifrin told her.
“Awesome,” she said with a smile. “All right, I’m gonna put the helmet on the head. And then … put the legs on the body.”
She remembered her experience that started two years earlier when she constructed a lotus flower.
“A lot of blind people have been left out of this cultural and kind of childhood phenomenon of being able to build Lego, play with Lego,” Ha said. “There is something incredibly satisfying and also relaxing to be able to put together these very intricate, very beautiful and architecturally complex builds.”
