In the Fall of 2016, my team pictured above were challenged with affecting the health of at risk youth. After researching areas of need, we decided we wanted to work with children who had no other choice but to live in the hospital for lengths at a time. We began with the question, “How might we use collaborative music to help improve emotional development in hospitalized children?”. From this question, we decided to prototype “Symphy”.

Symphy is a musical technology that draws from music and art therapy that allows children to create and share their self-made music.  Symphy allows kids to create their own music, learn music education, and create visual art that matches the mood of their music.  Symphy’s social capabilities enable collaboration on projects with other patients, and ability share their works via a hospital-wide social network. While working in tandem with music therapists, we hope Symphy can give these kids the freedom that they may not have at this stage of their lives.