© 2026 Mark Vedberg
Case Study: Accessible music-making for kids
In our bachelor's thesis, we addressed the question of how local communities can benefit from the expansion of renewable energies. For this purpose, we developed a digital platform for energy communities, with which citizens can promote regional expansion of renewable energies quickly and easily. Members of these communities can use the new.
Case Study: Accessible music-making for kids
In our bachelor's thesis, we addressed the question of how local communities can benefit from the expansion of renewable energies. For this purpose, we developed a digital platform for energy communities, with which citizens can promote regional expansion of renewable energies quickly and easily. Members of these communities can use the new.
Context
Bachelor Thesis Project at Umeå Institute of Design
Collaborator
Rumtiden Idea Lab
Timeline
10 weeks in 2025
People
Just me
Creating together generates inspiration and direction while sharing the pressure of coming up with ideas. Children wanted to make music with others, but lacked tools for genuine co-creation. Opus therefore uses the board game as a democratic interface: one shared surface, equally visible and accessible to everyone.
Finding direction together
Travel Kit
Laid out at the core of your trip view are the most important things to have with you; Information and your ticket. The widgets offers an exhaustive overview while the personalized message draws from all information available and is tailored to your personal trip.
Creating together generates inspiration and direction while sharing the pressure of coming up with ideas. Children wanted to make music with others, but lacked tools for genuine co-creation. Opus therefore uses the board game as a democratic interface: one shared surface, equally visible and accessible to everyone.
Finding direction together
Travel Kit
Laid out at the core of your trip view are the most important things to have with you; Information and your ticket. The widgets offers an exhaustive overview while the personalized message draws from all information available and is tailored to your personal trip.
Not just how: What do I make?
I initially expected the main barrier to music creation to be technical: knowing how to play an instrument, understand music theory, or use complex software. Those barriers matter, but they were not the main problem I found. Even with simple tools, children can still struggle with what to actually make. Starting from nothing can feel intimidating, especially when the music they know is highly polished and professional. The problem is not only being able to make music, but knowing how to begin without already having an idea or clear direction.
Travel Kit
Laid out at the core of your trip view are the most important things to have with you; Information and your ticket. The widgets offers an exhaustive overview while the personalized message draws from all information available and is tailored to your personal trip.
The Artist in His Studio by Rembrandt (c. 1628)
Creating together generates inspiration and direction while sharing the pressure of coming up with ideas. Children wanted to make music with others, but lacked tools for genuine co-creation. Opus therefore uses the board game as a democratic interface: one shared surface, equally visible and accessible to everyone.
Finding direction together
Travel Kit
Laid out at the core of your trip view are the most important things to have with you; Information and your ticket. The widgets offers an exhaustive overview while the personalized message draws from all information available and is tailored to your personal trip.
Starting without a clear structure can make music-making feel too open-ended: there are tools available, but no clear sense of what to do with them. Paper templates solve this by defining the rules, roles and behaviour of each session. Because different templates work in fundamentally different ways, they also offer different ways of making music, from straightforward sequencing to more playful, game-like formats. ChatGPT kan göra misstag. Kontrollera viktig information.
Setting the rules
Travel Kit
Laid out at the core of your trip view are the most important things to have with you; Information and your ticket. The widgets offers an exhaustive overview while the personalized message draws from all information available and is tailored to your personal trip.
Having to make something deliberately from the start creates pressure, especially when the reference point is polished, professional music. Each new project therefore begins with randomly assigned loops hidden inside the pieces. Instead of composing immediately, users first explore: trying sounds, combining them, and reacting to what they find. Direction can emerge from discovery rather than needing to exist beforehand.
Playful Exploration
Once a direction starts to emerge, random discovery is no longer enough. Users need to be able to act on what they like and shape the music more deliberately. Loops can be replaced, regenerated, saved and revisited. Previously discovered sounds stay available, and the composition itself can be rearranged, sped up, slowed down or moved into a different template.
Taking control
Travel Kit
Laid out at the core of your trip view are the most important things to have with you; Information and your ticket. The widgets offers an exhaustive overview while the personalized message draws from all information available and is tailored to your personal trip.
Simple tools can become dead ends
I initially expected the main barrier to music creation to be technical: knowing how to play an instrument, understand music theory, or use complex software. Those barriers matter, but they were not the main problem I found. Even with simple tools, children can still struggle with what to actually make. Starting from nothing can feel intimidating, especially when the music they know is highly polished and professional. The problem is not only being able to make music, but knowing how to begin without already having an idea or clear direction.
Travel Kit
Laid out at the core of your trip view are the most important things to have with you; Information and your ticket. The widgets offers an exhaustive overview while the personalized message draws from all information available and is tailored to your personal trip.
Musicians Returning in the Early Morning through Snowed Landscape by Jozef Teodor Mousson
Beginner tools often stay simple by limiting what users can actually make. To support progression, Opus introduces Loop Stations: phone-based tools for creating original beats, melodies, recordings and sounds. These creations can be uploaded to a physical piece and used on the board alongside the pre-made loops. This adds musical depth without separating more experienced users from beginners, since everyone can still contribute to the same shared composition.
Going deeper with Loop Stations
Travel Kit
Laid out at the core of your trip view are the most important things to have with you; Information and your ticket. The widgets offers an exhaustive overview while the personalized message draws from all information available and is tailored to your personal trip.
Progression should not only happen through tools built into Opus. Existing ways of making music should be able to enter the same shared composition. Vocals, instruments, recordings or audio made in other software can be recorded or imported, then uploaded to a piece and used on the board like any other loop.
Bringing outside music-making in
Travel Kit
Laid out at the core of your trip view are the most important things to have with you; Information and your ticket. The widgets offers an exhaustive overview while the personalized message draws from all information available and is tailored to your personal trip.
Music-making can also connect to creative work that is not strictly musical. Lyrics, visuals and video can shape the direction of a project and give people different ways to contribute. Opus can support that through things like lyric writing and a simple music-video tool, so someone can take part creatively even if their main contribution is not musical.
Bringing in other creative practices
Travel Kit
Laid out at the core of your trip view are the most important things to have with you; Information and your ticket. The widgets offers an exhaustive overview while the personalized message draws from all information available and is tailored to your personal trip.
Beginner tools often become dead ends because starting somewhere new means starting over. Opus lets users export either the finished song or separate stems, so the work can continue in other music software. The next step begins with something already made, rather than another blank page.
Moving on to other tools
Travel Kit
Laid out at the core of your trip view are the most important things to have with you; Information and your ticket. The widgets offers an exhaustive overview while the personalized message draws from all information available and is tailored to your personal trip.
Not just how: What do I make?
I initially expected the main barrier to music creation to be technical: knowing how to play an instrument, understand music theory, or use complex software. Those barriers matter, but they were not the main problem I found. Even with simple tools, children can still struggle with what to actually make. Starting from nothing can feel intimidating, especially when the music they know is highly polished and professional. The problem is not only being able to make music, but knowing how to begin without already having an idea or clear direction.
Travel Kit
Laid out at the core of your trip view are the most important things to have with you; Information and your ticket. The widgets offers an exhaustive overview while the personalized message draws from all information available and is tailored to your personal trip.
The Creation by Lucas Cranach
Instead of a blank page, users are met with low-pressure, playful exploration. Here
Playful Exploration
Not just how: What do I make?
I initially expected the main barrier to music creation to be technical: knowing how to play an instrument, understand music theory, or use complex software. Those barriers matter, but they were not the main problem I found. Even with simple tools, children can still struggle with what to actually make. Starting from nothing can feel intimidating, especially when the music they know is highly polished and professional. The problem is not only being able to make music, but knowing how to begin without already having an idea or clear direction.
Travel Kit
Laid out at the core of your trip view are the most important things to have with you; Information and your ticket. The widgets offers an exhaustive overview while the personalized message draws from all information available and is tailored to your personal trip.
The Creation by Lucas Cranach
Instead of a blank page, users are met with low-pressure, playful exploration. Here
Playful Exploration
Summary
In our bachelor's thesis, we addressed the question of how local communities can benefit from the expansion of renewable energies. For this purpose, we developed a digital platform for energy communities, with which citizens can promote regional expansion of renewable energies quickly and easily. Members of these communities can use the new.