MoodPath

Inspiration

We all use music to regulate our emotions: to focus, to calm down, or to lift our spirits. But most recommendation systems don’t actually understand how we feel in the moment. What if AI could suggest songs based on emotional awareness rather than listening history while providing new genres you might not be familiar with?

What it does

After you describe how you're feeling, the app analyzes your text, maps those emotions to musical features (valence, energy, tempo, acoustics, etc.), uses the public Spotify API to find songs that reflect or gently uplift your mood, and displays results in a Gradio web app with album recommendations and a breakdown of detected emotions. It also includes a Mood journal summary after each session and an Ethics & Well-being section that encourages healthy listening habits and mental-health awareness.

How we built it

Frontend: Gradio (Python) for good UI design, AI/NLP: hugging face transformer for emotion detection, backend: spotipy and spotify web API for song recommendations

Challenges we ran into

Getting valid Spotify recommendations, tuning the NLP outputs (ex: the model sometimes confused “overwhelmed” with “surprised.”), designing ethical safeguards that felt genuine and not performative, managing everything solo within 24 hours: debugging, UI, etc.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

First ever hackathon and I built a fully working AI + spotify integration in one day, alone. Integrated ethical design and mental-health awareness directly into the product. Inspired from my love for playing/listening to music. Seeing the final interface come to life such as the emotion bars, previews, and journal entries was the best part.

What we learned

Taught myself to combine NLP models with real-time API data, handling user emotion data responsibly. That small design choices (like “Uplift me gently”) can completely change how users feel about AI interactions.

What's next for MoodPath

Maybe integrate speech or tone analysis to detect emotions from voice input. Add playlist generation for different emotional journeys. Offer users a way to export their Mood Journal to track well-being over time. Experiment with music therapy data to see if AI-based mood tracking can genuinely support emotional regulation. Eventually deploy it online so others can experience what an ethical, human-centered AI can sound like.

Built With

• gradio
• huggingfacetransformers
• python
• spotifyapi
• spotipy