Olegoru: A Soundscape Composition Tool to Enhance Imaginative Storytelling with Tangible Objects

Learning storytelling is beneficial for children's development. Various tools have been proposed to expand the set of materials children can use to compose their stories. However, most previous research focuses on enhancing the visual aspect of storytelling and underexplores the acoustic elements needed for children's stories. In this paper, Olegoru1, a sound composition tool in the form of magic gloves and soul stones, is proposed to augment children's storytelling when using physical objects. Children can create contextual and regional sound effects as well as event-based acoustics through speech, non-verbal and gestural interaction, and could potentially enable children to create more immersive story-worlds. To investigate the technical feasibility of such tool, a preliminary prototype was built that accepts a limited number of vocalized sound effects and vocabulary.