# Interactive Rhythm Learning System by Combining Tablet Computers and Robots
## 4 Experimental Course and Field Trials  
To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system, an experimental course was designed. This course incorporated the rhythm teaching system into traditional rhythm education to improve students' sense of rhythm and musical performance skills. Ten students aged five to six years participated in four 50-min classes over four weeks. Appendix A shows the details of the teaching plan. In the first two classes, the children studied the basic sense of musical rhythm with traditional rhythm education. In the next two classes, the children used small snare drums to engage in interactive rhythm practice. First, robots played according to a score, and the children listened to them and observed their movements. Subsequently, the children were asked to replicate the rhythms according to the score by using small snare drums and repeat practicing what they have learned. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system, a test was administered to each student before and after rhythm education. The test methods are described as follows:  
1. The proposed rhythm rating function was used for assessment. This function played a test melody, during which the students were required to perform rhythms along with the melody. The system then recorded the number of beats that the students played accurately. 2. When the students used snare drums to play songs along with the melodies, their performance was observed and assessed. The test melody used in this experiment consisted of 25 beats that were to be tapped using one hand (Figure 10). Table 2 lists the detailed test results of 10 students. Before the course, the students scored an average beating accuracy of 59.16%; after the course, the accuracy improved to 79.51%. This improvement verifies the benefit of our teaching method. Most students achieved superior beating accuracy after the course; only student A played poorly after the course. Next, we investigated the performance of each student. In the pretest, the beating accuracy of student F was 44%; we observed that he moved his body along with the rhythm when music was played, but he was unable to tap the rhythm on time (he was often too slow) when he performed. However, after the course, we observed that his sense of rhythm and musical performance skills improved significantly; he always tapped the rhythm on time, and his beating accuracy increased from 44% to 84%. Student J showed a beating accuracy of 61.76% during the pretest. We observed that she was unfamiliar with musical rhythms and had difficulty following them. Consequently, she often tapped rhythms too early. However, she showed great interest in the course content. Subsequently, when performing an interactive musical performance with the robot, she could maintain her focus and  
Figure 9: Appearance of the robot. imitate the rhythms played by the robot. In addition, she indicated her strong desire to practice playing again after training. Her beating accuracy increased from 61.76% to 96.15% after the course. To further test our system, field trials were performed at Maker Faire Tokyo and Maker Faire Taipei (Figure 11). We designed a questionnaire to evaluate the user interaction satisfaction of the proposed system. The following conclusions were derived from the field tests and questionnaire results:  
* Children face difficulty performing complex rhythms on their own. However, through our system, children can learn to play complex rhythms using simple system operations. * Children who have a tendency to hit items with a stick show a willingness to spend more time editing their own rhythm-based sheet music after using our system. * Because the robot plays self-created music, after listening to a particular piece of music several times, most children learn about how to edit the sheet music to produce the songs they want to play. * The robot performance attracts children's attention and increases their willingness to learn.