ENHANCING ENGINEERING EDUCATION WITH VIRTUAL TECHNOLOGY: The Case of Industrial Engineering Curriculum

摘要

Quality of educational process in educational institutions can be improved by adopting new modes of teaching and also new enabling technologies such as computer simulations using virtual reality (VR) technologies. The potential of a VR based system is very impressive and as costs for the enabling technologies are cheaper there is an increase in its usage in education. To achieve an effective teaching medium, it is important to have a thorough understanding of VR technology; how and where it can be applied in education. During learning process, interaction with the subject material can increase construction of the learner's knowledge. This can be achieved through one of the best features of a VR system that is its interactivity. This paper is devoted to present and discuss the development of VR systems that are used to enhance the learning process within the industrial engineering curriculum. The VR systems used for two courses, namely, Design of Manufacturing Systems and Mechanics of Materials are presented and discussed. The first system discusses the development of an Internet based virtual laboratory for simulation of material characterization (tensile tests) for mechanics of materials course. The developed virtual lab allows the users to visualize the testing process and provides the testing result simultaneously in the Java environment. The virtual lab can perform tests on different materials at different speeds. The second system is devoted to the development of a new desktop training tool in Flexible Manufacturing Cell in order to demonstrate and address the concept of reconfigurability of Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS). The system is a robot-centered desktop virtual system with three main elements consisting of a milling machine, a storage system and a six degrees of freedom articulated robot. Visual C++ and OpenGL are used for user interface, simulation and animation.