Hovannes Kulhandjian

Exploring VR in Fundamentals of Electric Circuits

/in , /by
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

/in , /by
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]

NSCI1A_Image_1
Dermot Donnelly-Hermosillo

Undergraduate Student Learning and Perceptions of a Virtual Reality Chemistry Activity

/in , /by
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]

METR112_Image_1
Amy Ip

What Climate Change Will Look Like on Earth

/in , /by
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]

ASTRO10_Image_1
Gerald Rude

Introduction to Astronomy

/in , /by
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]

ME95_Image_1
Ho-Lung Li

Sand Casting Operation using VR

/in , /by
Sand Casting Operation using VR
ME 95 Product Development emphasizes fundamental aspects related to fabrication and shaping of engineering materials: casting, forming, machining, joining, etc. However, the lack of hands-on operating experience with real machines has become a weakness in our manufacturing curriculum. The instructor and his student assistant custom-developed a VR simulation of sand-casting processes using Solidworks and SimLab VR Studio.   [Poster]   [Presentation]

CM32_Image_1
Michele Randel

Spatial Awareness and its Impact on Design

/in , /by
Spatial Awareness and its Impact on Design
CM32 Architectural Design is an introduction to architectural design theory; analysis of architectural design problems, assessment of human needs, establishment of architectural design criteria and development of architectural design concepts. Students have a hard time with spatial relationships. They can not always see and comprehend scale, proportions, and space while working in small scaled models. The instructor redesigned the spatial experience assignment by leveraging building information modeling (BIM) and VR. Using Enscape, students were able to virtually walk through the design with Quest 2, and conduct immersive design review. This experience would help them develop a better understanding of human scale in relation to architectural design.   [Poster]   [Presentation]