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The DEMO version of Box of Tricks can be downloaded from here. It is approximately 10MB.
Welcome to Box of Tricks! This is a short introduction. Later in the manual you will find all the detailed information you might want when you are a regular user.
What does Box of Tricks do? Its main purpose is to help children to make speech sounds properly. When you make a sound into the microphone, you will see things happen to the pictures on the computer's screen. There are many different sorts of activity that you can try. If you haven't used Box of Tricks before, you should follow the quick tour that's set out below.
Several things have to be set up before you start. Firstly, the program has to be installed on your computer. If you need to do this, see `Installing Box of Tricks on your computer` in the manual, which tells you how to do it. Once it has been installed, you won't need to do that job again. Secondly, you need a suitable microphone connected to the computer (and switched on, if it has an on/off switch).
To start up the program, double-click on the program icon on the computer screen or from the Start menu. After the opening picture has been displayed, your screen will look like a wooden panel with five little windows on it, and a little blue arrow at bottom right. In the middle of the screen a ‘Teacher Login’ window will appear. Since this is a ‘Quick Tour’ to familiarise you with the basic parts of the program, you don’t need to register now. Please, click ‘Cancel’. (On how to register, see for the ‘User Management’ in the manual.)
To check that the computer is set up right for you, the first step is to check the microphone sensitivity - start this by clicking the top left window. You will see a window with a pink area at the top and a blue area at the bottom. Say some long "ah" sounds into the microphone - the little worm moving from left to right ought to jump up into the pink area when you are speaking. If it doesn't move at all, then your microphone isn't working properly. Try ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ for advice on what to do next. If the little worm jumps up, but not high enough, you could try moving closer to the microphone, or speaking more loudly, but if the microphone signal really isn't strong enough, it will need to be adjusted. ‘Settings’ tells you how this is done.
When you've finished checking the microphone sensitivity, it's time to get back to the start and choose an activity. Click the little blue house at the bottom right of the screen: this gives you a menu of choices. Click the top one ("Back to start"). Now we'll try `Sound preparation` - this is the most basic type of activity, to help in making simple vowels and consonants and other sounds. It's useful to do some practice with this before trying more complicated bits of speech. Click the `Sound Preparation` window, and you'll see a number of choices on display. Click the `Loudness` window. At top left, you'll see the signpost that will take you back to the beginning. Click the window next to this, which shows some mice holding up some apples. Say a long "ah" sound and see if you can get the blue ball to run through the white strip in the three lower apples or the two higher-up apples. When you want to finish this, click the little window showing this display at bottom left, then click the `Back` window. Click the `Back` window again to get back to the start. Now you should have an idea of how Box of Tricks can show you what your voice is able to do.
Now we'll look at something a bit more difficult. Fricatives are sounds like "s" and "sh", while affricates are sounds like "ch". Click the `Fricatives and Affricates` window. You are offered a choice of Sound Development, Training in Words, Contrast Pairs and Phrases. We'll start with some more `Sound Development`: Click the `Isolated Pronunciation` window, and then choose the "s" window (with the picture of the snake on it). You'll see two snakes sitting on a yellow path. As you make a sound into the microphone, you'll see lines on the screen. When you are making a good "s", the lines are all green because they are all fitting inside the lines at the edge of the yellow path. Through ‘settings’ in the pop-up menu (the little blue house) you can choose whether you want automatic feedback on your production or not. If there is no feedback, then click on ‘settings’. A window with many tabs will come up. Click on the tab ‘spectrum’ and untick the ‘Disable visual feedback’ option. Click ‘OK’. Now you can see a duck on the screen, next to the overload button. If your production is acceptable, the duck will move to the right and open its mouth to show it’s happy. If not, then the duck will remain still with its mouth closed. When there is something wrong with your "s", you will also see the lines are red where they move outside the path; you should try to change your "s" so that the lines come back inside the path. If you wish to change the form of feedback on the screen, you have a choice. Click on ‘settings’ again in the pop-up menu and go to ‘Feedback’. If you click on the little down arrow you can choose between a duck, a number, a colour and a flower. The number can range from 1 to 5 according to how well the sequence is pronounced. At the beginning of the exercise the displayed colour is red and the flower is in the pot. If the production is not very good, then the colour remains red or turns purple, and the flower develops only few leaves. Whereas when the sequence is pronounced well, the green colour appears and the flower blooms fully. For more details on the forms of feedback, see ‘Feedback’ in the manual.
Now click on the little window at lower left to go back. Click the `Back` window, then click `Syllables`. This time, for a change, we'll work on "sh", so click the window with the sheep on it. The screen should now show a little train, broken up into pieces on different windows. Click `Initial` - this means that you'll be working on "sh" at the beginning of a word. Click the window nearest to the `Back` window - this will give us the word "she". When you click on this, you'll see a picture and you should hear a child's voice saying "she". (If you hear nothing, then something is wrong with your sound output: see ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ on how to deal with the problem).
When you hear the voice saying "she", look at the upper window on the screen. At the left-hand end, there's a cloud, and underneath it a sleeping sheep. There are red dots all over the cloud, but none of them are touching the sheep - this is how a "sh" ought to look in this exercise. The blue-and-yellow pattern to the right is how the "ee" sound should look. Now it's your turn. Try saying "she" into the microphone and see if you can make the same picture in the lower window - red dots on the cloud, no red dots on the sheep. If you want to stop the recording, then re-start it, click the button with the picture of the microphone, which will become a hand. Then when you're ready to start again, click the button with the hand on it and it will become a microphone again. If you wish to listen to the child’s production again, click on the button with the picture of the loudspeaker next to the upper window. To listen to your own pronunciation, click on the same-looking button beneath it corresponding to the lower window. When you've done enough on that, click on the little display window at lower left. If you do not wish to have automatic feedback on your production, then go to ‘settings’ and click on ‘Syllable, word, sentence’. Then tick the box corresponding to ‘Disable visual feedback’.
We've got quite a long way into all the things you can do with fricatives and affricates. Now we'll try some work with vowels. Click the little blue house at lower right of the screen, and select `Back to start`; now click the `Vowels` window. After that, click `Sound Development`, then `Isolated Pronunciation`. Now you have a choice of five English vowels. Click the third one from the `Back` window - the one marked Aù, with the wide-open mouth. This is the "ah" sound in "half" or "palm". When you click this, you'll see two crocodiles in a river. When you say the "ah" sound into the microphone, you'll see green lines where the sound fits inside the river banks, but red where they go outside. You should try to fit the vowel into the river so that all the lines are green. The automatic feedback works in the same way as described above in ‘Fricatives and Affricates’. To get the very best result, your green lines ought to touch both crocodiles. See if you can do that.
Now for one more exercise - quite a bit harder. Click on the little display window at lower left, then click in the `Back` window and then do the same again. Now the windows on the screen should say `Sound Development`, `Training in Words`, `Contrast Pairs` and `Phrases`. We will work on Phrases, so click the `Phrases` window. This time, we'll pick the "ee" vowel, the nearest window to the `Back` window", with iù marked on it. When you click on this, you are offered three phrases to try. Click the one saying `A green bean`. You'll hear a child's voice saying the phrase, and the upper window shows the pattern of his voice. Notice how the two "ee" sounds are shown as two yellow blocks of cheese with mice in between them. The blue dots cover part of the yellow pieces of cheese, but they don't touch the mice. See if you can say it the same way. If you want to stop it and then start again, click the button with a hand on it, then when you're ready to start again, click the button with a microphone on it. You can playback the two voices (the child’s and your own) using the buttons with the loudspeaker on them.
That's the end of your first little tour of Box of Tricks. If you now click the little blue arrow at bottom right, you can select `Exit` and close the program down.
You have only seen a few of the hundreds of different things you can do with Box of Tricks, but we hope you've enjoyed seeing how it works.
Robot Control Software Ltd. Úrbéres u. 62/A., Budapest, 1028 Hungary; Tel/Fax:+36-1 275-8059 Mobil:+36-20 801-7051