Researchers Run a COVID-Era Robot Study to Teach Children to Wash Their Hands

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

V. USER STUDY

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we conducted the entire study online through the video teleconferencing platform Zoom (refer to Figure 5). Children played the game and interacted with the robot individually. Researchers facilitated the video conferencing call to ensure that the data collected is truly a representation of the children’s views. The average time taken to conduct the study with each child was approximately 35 minutes. Since the children did not have prior interaction with a robot, at the beginning of the study, a short general interaction was facilitated between HakshE and the child to familiarize him/her with the robot and to see if he/she feels comfortable continuing with the study.

One of the researchers explained the rules and instructions of the game to the child. A video on the six steps of handwashing as instructed by WHO was shown to the child before the game. Researchers did not intervene in-between the game unless a technical issue had to be resolved. This allowed children to interact with the robot and play the game on their own, eliminating any kind of bias.

As an incentive for the children, we built a simple webbased Augmented Reality (AR) platform using UniteAR [31] where a 3D model of HakshE was projected onto their surroundings by scanning a custom QR code using their mobile phones. We conducted a session with the children after the study to explain this AR process. All the children were compensated with a photograph from their AR experience with HakshE (refer to Figure 6).