研究指出，孩童若越早接觸音樂，能夠幫助孩童提升其語言發展、增強創新能力，並且改善身體的協調性。因此，現在市面上有許多的電子音樂玩具如玩具吉他、玩具鼓、玩具鋼琴等。這些電子音樂玩具能夠讓孩童對樂器有初步的認識，也讓孩童在娛樂中引發對音樂的好奇心。 隨著現代電子科技與軟體的進步，電子音樂玩具的功能也應該被改善。本論文提出為孩童設計之電子長號音樂玩具，讓孩童能夠體驗吹奏長號的樂趣，甚至是像專業長號演奏家一樣演奏樂曲。我們延伸長號原有的特色，並加入導引與娛樂的元素，利用微處理器作為運算的核心，連結紅外線感測模組、麥克風等感測器來模擬長號的演奏方式，透過藍芽與電腦連線之後，使用 MIDI 協定讓電腦應用程式來發出聲響，應用程式並提供三種不同的遊戲模式：教導模式 (tutorial mode) 、吹奏模式 (play mode) 及娛樂模式(performance entertainment mode) 來操作電子長號。電子長號的設計期望實現下列目標：一、提供孩童有一個簡單且有趣的方式來學習操作長號般的樂器；二、創造出適合孩童學習的低門檻長號樂器；三、孩童操作電子長號時，能有像在真實操作長號時的體感互動。最後，本實驗將針對系統效能驗證及使用經驗進行相關探討與提供改進的方法。 Early exposure to music can help children promote their language development, enhance their creative ability, and improve their physical coordination capability. Therefore, a lot of musical toys (e.g., toy guitars, toy drums and percussion, toy keyboards and pianos, toy wind instruments, toy band sets) which can provide a good introduction to musical instruments and give children hours of entertainment are commercially available on the market. With modern electronics and software, the functionalities of music instrument toys can be improved. In this paper, we present an electronic trombone-like toy for children who try to experience playing a trombone or pretend to play a trombone at the professional level as a truly professional trombonist does. We tried to extend the traditional trombone by providing tutorial and entertaining elements via the use of IR sensors, a wireless transmission module, a microprocessor, a microphone and a computing device (e.g., PC) with a MIDI software application which provide three playing modes: tutorial mode、play mode and performance entertainment mode. The design of the electronic trombone aimed to achieve several goals. First of all, we wanted to provide an easy and entertaining approach to learning to play a trombone-like instrument. Secondly, we tried to make the entry level of playing a trombone for children as low as possible. Thirdly, we hope to preserve as much of the physical interactions needed for playing an actual trombone as possible while one plays the electronic trombone. Experiments were designed to evaluate the proposed electronic trombone.
