College of L&S Computer Science and Applied Mathematics (Janaki, Revekka)
Upon meeting in a user interface design and development course (CS 160) in Fall 2018, Revekka Kostoeva and Janaki Vivrekar teamed up with a few of their peers to build Vibrato, an augmented musical experience for Deaf / Hard of Hearing (D/HoH) individuals. Intrigued by the challenge of designing novel music technology for the unique D/HoH demographic, their team learned from user interviews, built prototypes, iterated on their design, and implemented an Android application that customizes the D/HoH musical experience. In Spring 2019, Revekka and Janaki earned the Jacobs Institute Innovation Catalysts Ignite Grant to continue developing their idea beyond the Android mobile interface.