How Likely Are Children to Take Instructions from a Robot?

Table of Links

• Abstract and I. Introduction
• II. The Casa Paradigm and Gamification
• III. Land of Hands: The Game
• IV. Methods
• V. User Study
• VI. Results
• VII. Discussion

  • VIII. Conclusion

  • IX. Acknowledgments and References

III. LAND OF HANDS: THE GAME

Land of Hands is a two-player collaborative educational game, based on the theme of hand hygiene. The child and the robot have to play together to rescue a princess who has been captured by germs and locked inside a faraway castle because she did not maintain proper hand hygiene. The game starts with a video narrative that sets the background for the players. The game consists of three levels - A matching level that assesses a child’s understanding and recognition of various parts of the hand that are involved in the handwashing process; A word puzzle level that highlights important vocabulary words related to the topic of hand hygiene; and a picture ordering level that helps children remember the correct order of World Health Organisation’s (WHO) six steps of handwashing (refer to Figure 1). Throughout the game, children interact with HakshE to progress to the next level, receive help during the levels, and try to win the game before the allotted time runs out. Upon completing all three levels, the princess gets freed and asks the children to explain to her what they learnt about hand hygiene from their interactions with HakshE.

The gameplay consists of several elements (refer to Figure 2) that have the potential to facilitate a unique engagement in the context of social robotics as a function of people treating robots as social actors [15]. They are:

• Keys - There are six golden keys in the game which act as rewards for the player. A key can be won by the child after completing each level and HakshE has the other three keys.

• Scrolls - There are three glowing scrolls in the game. Each scroll appears before a level begins and allows HakshE to ask questions on hand hygiene to the children. If the children answer the question correctly, HakshE gives them a key that unlocks the next level.

• Help Button - Each of the three levels in the game has an “Ask Robot For Help” button that allows children to ask HakshE for answers or any kind of help while playing.

• Points - Each level has a set of points (gold coins) that the child can earn upon completion of that level. As this is a collaborative game, no points are deducted if the child asks HakshE for help.

• Timer - Each level has a timer that starts a countdown as soon as the child enters the level. If the level is not completed before the allotted time runs out, the player loses points. To encourage social interactions between HakshE and children, the timer is paused whenever they seek HakshE’s help.

Land of Hands is a 2D game that we developed using Godot’s game engine (V3.3) [25]. As shown in Figure 3, we used Alice 3 to animate the video narrative that is played at the beginning of the game [23], [24]. The only mode of control required from the player’s end is a simple left mouse button click which selects/deselects various elements in the game. The movement of the characters in the game is pre-coded. As this game is meant for young children, we significantly simplified its design to reduce the cognitive load on children*. Land of Hands* can be played in an offline mode with the physical prototype of HakshE and in an online mode where both the game and HakshE are hosted on Zoom video conferencing platform.