The project
The full title of the project states the problem and the method in one line: Good Vibrations: Improving the Music Experience for People with Hearing Loss Using Multi-Frequency Tactile Sound. The Google Science Fair's own announcement describes it as a device that converts sound into tactile vibrations in order to improve the experience of music for people with hearing loss.
The idea attacks a specific gap rather than a general one. Music reaches most listeners as sound alone, and an approach that routes it through touch changes what a listener with hearing loss can perceive of it. That is the whole of what the sources describe about how the device works.
How the competition was run
The Google Science Fair ran as an online competition that narrowed a global entry to fifteen finalists across three age groups. Those finalists were invited to Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California, in July to present their projects to an international panel of finalist judges.
Kohn's group, the 13 to 14 category, also contained Sumit Singh of India, Sakhiwe Shongwe and Bonkhe Mahlalela of Swaziland, Alexy Klozkov and Milena Klimenko of Ukraine, and Martin Schneider and Joshua Li of the United States. He won the category on 23 July 2012.
Who else won that year
The 15 to 16 category went to a Spanish team, Ivan Hervias Rodriguez, Marcos Ochoa and Sergio Pascual, for La Vida Oculta del Agua, a study of microscopic life in fresh water.
The grand prize, and the 17 to 18 category, went to Brittany Wenger of the United States for a global neural network cloud service for breast cancer, an application that compares an individual patient's test results against large datasets to support less invasive diagnosis. Prizes came from Google and its partners CERN, LEGO, National Geographic and Scientific American.
Why a science fair category matters
The Google Science Fair was an open online competition rather than a national selection, which meant a thirteen-year-old with an idea and a working prototype competed against the same judging panel as everyone else in the age group.
Assistive technology is also an unusual choice at that age. Most entries at this level solve a problem the entrant finds interesting; a device for people with hearing loss solves a problem somebody else has, which requires defining the user before designing the hardware.
What is documented - and what is not
Two posts on the Google Science Fair's own blog carry everything on this page: the finalist list, the categories, the venue, the date and the project titles and descriptions.
They do not give a birth year, a school, a home town, a photograph or a quotation from Kohn, and no further reporting appears in the sources used here. Nothing is documented about what became of the device, whether it was developed further, or what Kohn did afterwards. Those gaps are left open rather than filled with plausible guesses.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evann Sun | United States | An invention award at 14 for glasses that read printed pages aloud to stud | Age 14 |
| Akhil Nagori | United States | Cheap glasses that turn printed text into speech, built for students who c | Age 15 |
| Jonah Kohn | United States | Winning the 13-14 category, 2012 Google Science Fair | — |
| Madhav Lavakare | India | Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar 2019, innovation | — |
| Daniel Kazantsev | Russia | LEGO Education Builder Award, Google Science Fair 2019 | — |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- Won the 13-14 category of the 2012 Google Science Fair with Good Vibrations (Google Science Fair blog)
- The project is described as converting sound into tactile vibrations for people with hearing loss
- The final was judged at Google's Mountain View headquarters on 23 July 2012
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- No published birth year, school or home town
- No detail on how the device was built or tested
- No documented information about him after the 2012 competition
Questions people ask about Jonah Kohn
What is Jonah Kohn known for?
Winning the 13 to 14 age category of the 2012 Google Science Fair with Good Vibrations, a device that converts sound into tactile vibration for people with hearing loss.
How does the device work?
The competition's announcement describes it as converting sound into tactile vibrations to improve the music experience for people with hearing loss. No further technical detail appears in the sources used here.
How old is Jonah Kohn?
No source used here gives a birth year. He competed in the 13 to 14 category in 2012, which is the only age information published.
Where was the final held?
At Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California, on 23 July 2012, judged by an international panel.
Who won the grand prize in 2012?
Brittany Wenger of the United States, for a cloud-based neural network service to support breast cancer diagnosis.
Is Jonah Kohn on Wikipedia?
No Wikipedia article on him was found. The record here rests on the Google Science Fair's own blog posts.
What happened to Good Vibrations afterwards?
Nothing in the sources used here documents what became of the project or the device.
Where is Jonah Kohn now?
No information after July 2012 appears in the sources used here.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Jonah’s story?
What did Jonah Kohn's project do?
Which age category did he win?
Where was the 2012 final held?
Sources
- The winners of the 2012 Google Science Fair — Google Science Fair blog, 2012-07-23
- 15 Google Science Fair Finalists and the Science in Action winners are off to Mountain View — Google Science Fair blog, 2012-06-06
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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