Trace

Inspiration

The idea for Trace came from a personal experience. One of our teammate Rameet’s grandmothers has begun experiencing the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Watching someone slowly lose their memories is incredibly difficult, both for the person and for their family. One thing we noticed is that even when people with Alzheimer’s struggle to remember specific details, certain places can still feel familiar to them. A park, a house, or a café can trigger emotions even if the exact memory is hard to recall. That observation made us think about how powerful the connection between place and memory really is. We wondered if there was a way to make those emotional connections visible and help people reconnect with meaningful places in their lives. That idea became the foundation for Trace.

What it does

Trace introduces a new speculative sense we call memory resonance, which describes the subtle emotional response people experience when they return to locations connected to past memories. The idea imagines a small wearable device called the Trace Pendant that detects signals such as changes in heart rate, emotional arousal, and location data. When a user revisits a place that triggers a strong emotional reaction, the app visualizes this response as a memory aura on a map. Over time, the map fills with these glowing traces, revealing which places hold calm, joyful, intense, or fading memories.

The concept draws from several real biological sensory systems. These include interoception, the body’s ability to sense internal signals like heart rate and physiological arousal; proprioception, which helps the brain understand body position and movement within an environment; spatial memory, primarily supported by the hippocampus and responsible for linking experiences to physical locations; and emotional processing, involving the amygdala, which connects emotions to memories. Trace also relies on environmental perception, which includes visual, auditory, and contextual cues from surroundings that can trigger memory recall.

By combining signals from these sensory systems, Trace imagines a way to visualize the emotional traces that memories leave behind in the places that shaped our lives.

How we built it

We started by exploring how an invisible emotional experience like memory could be turned into something visual and interactive. We first created wireframes in Figma to design the core user flow and main screens such as onboarding, the memory map, memory details, and insights. Once the structure was clear, we moved the project into Figma Make to transform the wireframes into a more polished interactive prototype.

Challenges we ran into

One challenge was balancing imagination with realism. Since emotional memories cannot currently be measured directly, we had to think about which signals could realistically represent a memory response. Another challenge was deciding how to visualize memories in a way that felt meaningful. Memories are abstract, so we experimented with different visual ideas until we found something that made sense.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that Trace takes something invisible and deeply human and turns it into a visual experience. The project allowed us to combine emotional storytelling with design and speculative technology. Connecting the concept to Alzheimer’s made the project feel especially meaningful, because it explores how technology could help people stay connected to important places and memories.

What we learned

Through this project we learned how strongly memories are connected to environments and how design can be used to represent emotional experiences. We also learned how quickly ideas can evolve when using tools like Figma and Figma Make for rapid prototyping. Iterating on visuals and user flows helped us focus on making the experience intuitive and emotionally engaging.

What's next for Trace

In the future Trace could expand beyond visualizing memory traces. It could allow users and families to attach voice notes, photos, or short stories to meaningful locations. For people experiencing memory decline, this could become a supportive tool that helps them reconnect with important places and moments from their lives. Ultimately Trace explores how technology might help people preserve and rediscover the memories that shape who they are.