Browsing by Author "Vasey, Eric"

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    Child-Robot Theater: STEAM Education in an Afterschool Program
    Barnes, Jaclyn; FakhrHosseini, S. Maryam; Vasey, Eric; Duford, Zackery; Ryan, Joseph; Jeon, Myounghoon (ACM, 2017)
    Children in an elementary school afterschool program utilizing the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) education paradigm created and acted in short plays with a variety of social robots.
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    Informal STEAM Education Case Study: Child-Robot Musical Theater
    Barnes, Jaclyn; FakhrHosseini, S. Maryam; Vasey, Eric; Park, Chung Hyuk; Jeon, Myounghoon (ACM, 2019)
    STEAM education fuses arts with traditional STEM fields so that the diverse disciplines can broaden and inform each other. Our eight-week STEAM afterschool program exposed elementary school children to social robotics and musical theater. Approximately 25 children grades K-5 participated over the course of the program with an average of 12 children attending each week. The program covered acting, dancing, music, and drawing with the robots in two-week modules based around the fairy tale, “Beauty and the Beast”. The modular design enabled children who could come to only a few sessions to participate actively. The children demonstrated enthusiasm for both the robots and the musical theater activities and were engaged in the program. Efforts such as this can provide meaningful opportunities for children to explore a variety of arts and STEM fields in an enjoyable manner. The program components and lessons learned are discussed with recommendations for future research.
  • Making Live Theatre with Multiple Robots as Actors Bringing Robots to Rural Schools to Promote STEAM Education for Underserved Students
    Jeon, Myounghoon; FakhrHosseini, Maryram; Barnes, Jaclyn; Duford, Zackery; Zhang, Ruimin; Ryan, Joseph; Vasey, Eric (ACM, 2016)
    We have tried to promote STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education for underserved students using interactive robots. As an advanced attempt to integrate art and design into STEM education (i.e., STEAM), in the present paper we introduce our afterschool program in which elementary students create live theatre using multiple robots as actors. We hope to receive feedback and comments on our afterschool curriculum and case study, and thus, we can run better sessions at schools and make a standardized protocol regarding this robot actors approach.
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    Smart Exercise Application to Improve Leg Function and Short-Term Memory Through Gamelike Lunge Exercises: Development and Evaluation
    Noh, Byungjoo; Vasey, Eric; Phillips, Kevin; Jeon, Myounghoon; Yoon, Tejin (Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Zagreb, 2019)
    The purpose of this study was to evaluate the functionality, accuracy, and usability of a novel smart exercise application (SEA). The functionality such as counting lunges, providing task-related auditory feedback, and testing short-term memory was examined while thirteen young adults (six men, age 25.4 ± 8.3 years) performed the lunge exercise with the SEA. The accuracy of logged motion data including angles and accelerations were also tested. Another twenty-five participants (11 men, age 23.2 ± 5.7 years) evaluated the usability of the SEA interest, motivation, convenience, and strength/cognitive benefit via a questionnaire. The SEA assessed the lunge motion correctly, provided auditory feedback, and tested users’ short-term memory as required. High correlations (r = 0.90 to 0.99) with low RMSE (4.85˚ for direction angle, 0.13 to 0.22 m/s² for acceleration) were observed between the sensor output and the reference output. Bland-Altman plot also showed a low discrepancy between each of the two measures. Most participants positively answered all questions about interest (60%), motivation (40%), convenience (80%), strength benefits (92%), and cognitive benefits (88%) of the SEA. The SEA demonstrated accurate kinematic assessment of accelerations and directions, assessed the lunge motion correctly, and created the appropriate auditory feedback on the shortterm memory task. The high rate of positive responses suggested the potential of the application in future use.