JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Sarah Park has used her love of robotics and music to create a device she hopes will provide personalized music therapy to anyone who is struggling with mental health.
“My grandmother suffers from severe anxiety and depression, but when she heard my violin playing, that was the one that would give her some positive emotion,” said Sarah Park.
That observation turned into a science project for the Bolles School student. She has had great success so far.
Her project called Spark Care + won the 3M competition for young scientists last year. The 14-year-old then went on to win first place in the Northeast Florida Regional Science and Engineering Fair in the biochemistry division, hosted by the Episcopal School of Jacksonville. She has also been named a finalist in the International Science and Engineering competition and is one of 6 local students who will represent Northeast Florida in May. Sarah will compete in the state competition later this week.
Sarah said she discovered her device stimulates the same hormones in the body that are triggered by medication used to help people suffering from mental health issues. It is her hope Spark Care + can be used instead of medication to improve mental health. “I created an artificial intelligence, which used score regression, which gets inputted into a machine learning model,” she explained.
The device uses a wristband to help measure a person’s heart rate and skin response to detect the piece of music that will most optimally help that person relax.
Sarah has been working on the project for nearly a year and while it’s a lot of work, she said it has felt more like playing, than work.
Sarah is also an accomplished pianist and violinist. In fact, last month, she won the Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestra Young Artist competition for violin. She will now play solo with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra in May.
Stay tuned, we are profiling 3 of the other International Science Fair and Engineering high school finalists each morning during the 8 a.m. hour of The Morning Show.