Innovation pays off for Boston students

"The ArtScience Prize really encourages students to pursue art and design on the frontiers of science," said Carrie Fitzsimmons, the founding director of the prize. "Essentially, it's an art and design competition that has a scientific theme each year."

This year's theme was neuroinformatics, a relatively new field that combines neuroscience and information science to study the brain, Fitzsimmons said.

The top team, a three-person group, came up with a wearable device called the Coach Master. The device would teach people while they dream, and could be used by "children who don't have access to schools, people who want to learn a sport but don't have access to a coach, and people who are struggling with psychological issues."

Justin Crespo Ortiz, Kanny Moussignac, and Victoria Strojwas, all of the John D. O'Bryant School of Math & Science, came up with the winning idea. The team received about $50,000 and will travel to Paris for a 10-day development workshop at Le Laboratoire, an art and design center.

The program kicked off last fall. More than 300 students from Boston public high schools signed up, but only 105 could be accepted, Fitzsimmons said.

Students were placed into teams and attended after-school sessions twice a week to develop their ideas. They spoke with both neuroscientists and contemporary artists, and they also visited brain-scanning labs at Mass General and the MIT Media Lab.

The 14 finalist teams were made up of sophomores, juniors, and seniors, Fitzsimmons said. Their ideas included a device called the Argument Resolution Patch, which seeks to prevent conflicts between people; Emuse Me, a virtual music game where players' thoughts are converted into musical beats; and THINKwave, a portable device that allows businesses and advertisers to cater to customers through "neuromarketing."

The entries were judged by an international panel of scientists, artists, educators, and entrepreneurs, and the winners were selected based on "idea concreteness," Fitzsimmons said. Five teams received $8,000, and the remaining eight each got $1,000.

The ArtScience Prize was put together by ArtScience Labs, The Cloud Foundation, Boston Public Schools, Boston World Partnerships, the office of Menino, the Idea Translation Lab at Harvard University, and Le Laboratoire in Paris.