Pan-Tilt-Zoom Camera with easy joystick controls

"I worked with a  nine year old African American female who was admitted to Akron Children's Hospital for Hemoptysis.  She had missed a lot of school due to her illness and because of her absence and other issues she faced, she struggled socially with her peers.  She wrote, directed, and acted out her personal story of being bullied.  She had wanted to show the video to her family in the Expressive Therapy Center but due to her parents' work and school schedule, only she and the Expressive Therapy Center Staff were present to witness her powerful story through her film.  She was overjoyed and very proud of her movie, and she identified goals of going into movie production when she was older because of her personal journey of filmmaking with the Elf Project."

Molly Kohut, MA, ATR-BC, PCCArt Therapist

Board Certified Art Therapy Coordinator

Akron Children's Hospital

After years of dreaming, and with the help of many generous contributors, the Expressive Art Therapy Center has opened at Akron Children's Hospital.  Music, art, poetry and dance have been used by the hospital for years as a way to help children and their families cope with illness and express their feelings.  This center expands on this healing concept.   

Michael Pope, President of Audio Video Interiors, had been working with the hospital for several years on a similar project to provide an audio video experience for the children.  With an inspired idea of Dr. Sarah Friebert, the vision and scope of the original project grew and Pope explains, "When we learned of the Expressive Arts Therapy project and how the children could benefit from an interactive system that included a recording studio, projection system, and performing stage, we immediately decided to merge our talents with the architects and creative hospital staff to help make this incredible, healing room a reality." 

Gary Matthews, CTS, Director of Business Deveolpment, designed the AV system with scalability and ease-of-use in mind, allowing for the system to grow as needed while being simple to operate.  The system allows the children to perform karaoke-style while being filmed using a professionl-grade pan/tilt/zoom camera controlled much like a video game via a joystick.  He was able to achieve his design goals with the generous support from manufacturers including NEC, Crestron and Ashly, each providing donated or deeply discounted products.  The system is completely automated and provides assisted listening, making it wheelchair & hospital bed accessible, as well as being available to the hearing-impaired.  Clay Matthews, CTS, served as the Programmer and Lead Technician on the installation.  Clay programmed camera pre-sets and simple function buttons, making the hi-performance system user-friendly. 

 Additional information about the project can be found on the Audio Video Interiors website.