Hovannes Kulhandjian

Exploring VR in Fundamentals of Electric Circuits

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Exploring VR in Fundamentals of Electric Circuits
ECE90 Electric Circuits provides a foundation in the fundamental concepts of electrical engineering, including direct-current circuit analysis; circuit theorems; transient phenomena in RL and RC circuits, introduction to operational amplifiers, phasor concept; AC steady-state circuit analysis, sinusoidal steady-state response; power and RMS calculations in single-phase circuits etc. This course is taken mainly by ECE and ME students. The failure rate of the course is very high above 30%. The content of the course is very much heavily math involved and many students find it challenging to keep up with the content of the course. Students need new ways to be more engaged and interested in the course content. The VR experience provided students an alternative, immersive learning experience. The VR activity with Short Circuit VR was incorporated in designing and testing circuits virtually that were presented to them and making voltage and current measurements.   [Poster]   [Presentation]   [Report]

Anahit Hovhannisyan

VR Implementation in Neuroanatomy Class

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VR Implementation in Neuroanatomy Class
BIOL 144L course is designed to present and explain basic organization of the brain and its functional anatomy. Brain structures identifications, 3D visualisation, neural pathway tracking are main challenges that students experience. As an intervention, the instructor integrated VR in the last learning module of this course: research projects. Instead of having students develop a project on one of the nervous systems and do comparative research on different animal models, students had to explore the VR app, create a project from available data sets, and present it to the class. Students used their class lab space to use custom-designed syGlass app with three different data sets. They have been assigned to the three to four student groups. Each group had the use of one headset and had access to one laptop compatible for the external app. Students took turns to use the headsets, the app, explore tutorials and try to do analyses, measurements, video recordings within the app and write down the narratives. In total 20 licenses for 30 days have been used during five classes. Students spent 25+ hours on their projects.   [Poster]   [Report]

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Dermot Donnelly-Hermosillo

Undergraduate Student Learning and Perceptions of a Virtual Reality Chemistry Activity

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Undergraduate Student Learning and Perceptions of a Virtual Reality Chemistry Activity
NSCI 1A Integrated Physical Science introduces basic concepts and misconceptions in physical science and their relation to the everyday environment. Topics include memorable demonstrations in lecture, household-related experiments, and experiments of special interest to K-6 teachers. The intervention introduced by the instructor was to replace a discussion board homework activity with a VR activity to improve students’ understanding of element and compound names, atomic structure, and the balancing of chemical equations. The instructor used an off-the-shelf VR application, FutuClass.   [Presentation]   [Report]

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Amy Ip

What Climate Change Will Look Like on Earth

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What Climate Change Will Look Like on Earth
METR 112: Global Climate Change introduces students to the formation and evolution of the atmosphere. Climate changes in the Earth’s past. It explains the interactions between climate and life, and defines anthropogenic climate change. The instructor used a 360° Video (What Climate Change Will Look Like on Earth) through YouTube to observe the effects of climate change through a virtual environment and to connect concepts of severe and extreme weather in a visual sense.   [Report]

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Gerald Rude

Introduction to Astronomy

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Introduction to Astronomy
The instructor customized a VR application, entitled “Horizon Worlds,” to help students visualize the relative position and orientation among the Sun, Earth, and Moon at different lunar phases.   [Report]