Eric Wan, a U of T engineering graduate student, can sympathize with disabled children who cannot play music because they can’t hold an instrument. He was diagnosed with transverse myelitis after a measles vaccination when he was eighteen, leaving him paralyzed below the shoulders.
Over the past five years, Wan has focused on applying his engineering skills toward helping children who, like him, can’t engage in everyday activities like making music. He explains that his work lies “in making software or electronic gadgets that enable people to be able to do more, and so to improve their quality of life.”
The Virtual Music Instrument, the project that Wan helped to develop, “lets … kids experience music and creativity that they otherwise would not have had an opportunity to do. In this way, VMI allows children to participate more fully in our society,” says Wan.
Wan first began volunteering at the Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in the summer of 2005. He subsequently had the opportunity to participate as an intern, and has been a member of the research team ever since. Wan collaborated with Tom Chau, a senior scientist at the Bloorview Research Institute, while working for the Paediatric Rehabilitation Intelligent Systems Multidisciplinary Lab, or PRISM.
Holland Bloorview is the largest children’s rehabilitation center in Canada. The PRISM lab emphasizes efforts to help youth with disabilities to participate more fully in society, using engineering and science. With a long-running interest in computer systems, Wan completed his bachelor’s degree in computer engineering at U of T, and also learned his first programming language at the tender age of eight.
According to Wan, “the Virtual Music project was created for pediatric rehabilitation, and it had been used as a therapeutic tool in music therapy since it was first developed. In the recent years, VMI has been introduced in geriatrics in Australia.”
Wan has been leading a team of students in the software development of the project for the past four years. “Our teamwork resulted in numerous advancements that improved user experience,” says Wan.
The Virtual Music Instrument requires two simple components to work properly: a personal computer and webcam. Wan explains, “The software displays the environment that is projected through the video capture device. Virtual objects can be created on the display, where each virtual object is a configurable instrument sound. The user can then activate the sounds by interacting with the software through body movements.”
The Virtual Music Instrument is unique in that it is a research effort to develop a musical instrument that all children can access, with a strong focus on those who are disabled. This is just one of the projects in which Wan is involved; he is also bringing his computer expertise to the iPod localization project, an iPod-based tracking system that allows patients using a ventilator to move through a hospital at their leisure without direct supervision. Wan has also helped develop the Aspirometer device, which detects swallowing safety.
His supervisor, Chau, speaks highly of Wan. “[He is] absolutely phenomenal as a person and as an inspiration for the lab — and this is aside from all the technical capabilities that he also brings.”
Wan is now pursuing a two-year master’s degree in biomedical engineering at the University of Toronto. He continues to be highly interested in software development that helps children with disabilities to gain more control of their lives.
