The Tennessee State University (TSU) Targeted Infusion Project's state-of-the-art Virtual and Augmented Reality (VAR) Research and Educational Laboratory enhances the Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering curriculum and increases mentored research opportunities for undergraduate students. Deploying VAR as a research and educational vehicle, this laboratory will immerse students in actual engineering-design challenges. The critical demand for modeling, analyzing, and visualizing complex multidimensional data sets creates a need to offer this VAR initiative for training students, and integrate advanced engineering tools in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering to relevant industrial applications and research at TSU. Though VAR has been identified as one of the fourteen grand challenges of engineering by the National Academy of Engineering, unpublished institutional data from recent alumni (1999-2009) reveal no TSU graduates applied to VAR graduate programs or were employed by industries specializing in VAR technologies. This pattern contributes to the under-representation of African Americans in the VAR workforce and in competitive VAR graduate programs.
The objectives of this proposal are to: 1) Develop a Virtual and Augmented Reality Laboratory for academic training to integrate research and educational modules in the Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering programs; 2) Prepare globally competitive engineers by equipping TSU's engineering students with knowledge and understanding of critical engineering concepts and VAR technologies which are required to solve practical engineering design challenges in tomorrow's workforce and competitive graduate engineering programs; and 3) Enhance infrastructure and promote sustainability by increasing the synergy with TSU's two federally funded successful programs (HBCU-UP Implementation and LS-TLSAMP) which are focused on STEM student achievement.
" was to develop an effective pedagogy for incorporating virtual and augmented reality laboratory into engineering education at the undergraduate level. The project has resulted in the development of advanced scientific visualization based engineering education tools in the Virtual and Augmented Reality Laboratory at the TIGER Institute in Tennessee State University. Specifically, the award has supported the development of VADS, Virtual Assembly Design System, which has been incorporated in two laboratory courses in Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering Departments. In the mechanical engineering course, VADS is used to teach students assembly of a six bar quick return mechanism. VADS utilizes a virtual-reality head mounted display (HMD) to render the user’s physical surroundings while augmenting visual feedback to include three dimensional models positioned where the user must place the next physical part of the assembly. Overall the project has resulted in three conference proceedings and five undergraduate research presentations. We present the outcomes of the project corresponding to each of the three proposed objectives. The proposed objectives of the project were Objective 1: Develop a Virtual and Augmented Reality Laboratory for Academic Training - To help transform TSU’s CoETCS through an innovative pedagogy with a personalized and immersive learning environment. Outcome 1a: The VAR laboratory was developed by acquiring virtual and augmented reality hardware and software. The laboratory is currently housed in the TIGER Institute, a research arm of the College of Engineering. Currently, the VAR laboratory hardware include, 2 Head Mounted Displays, 2 Workstations, Juxtopia Augmented Reality googles, IDEUM Platform 55 touchscreen table. The software include commercial of the shelf software, Juxtopia, Vizard, Autodesk 3DS Max, and DFusion Studio and software developed by the project team, VADS and SustainCity. Outcome 1b: Three undergraduate researchers participated in the project and presented the results in form of posters and oral presentations at multiple venues [4-6]. Three graduate students also participated in the project and their efforts resulted in three conference publications [1-3] Objective 2: Prepare Globally Competitive Engineers - To help transform TSU engineering students by enhancing African American engineering students with knowledge and understanding of critical engineering concepts required to succeed in tomorrow’s workforce, and/or in competitive graduate engineering programs in a realistic immersive learning environment. Outcome 2a: The VADS system was incorporated in a Machine Design course with an enrollment of 15 students in Fall 2012. The course is offered once per year and impacts 15-20 students Outcome 2b: The ability to perform design experiments using VADS has enhanced the professional engineering environment three semesters earlier than students who have not been exposed to VADS Outcome 2c: The exposure to VADS will also help students pursue graduate programs in the area of visualization. Objective 3: Enhance Infrastructure and Promote Sustainability - To transform TSU’s STEM environment by increasing the synergy between TSU’s two federally funded successful programs focused on STEM student achievement. Outcome 3a: The project has helped achieve synergy between Mechanical and Electrical Engineering departments and has helped improve the quality of curriculum in select courses in both departments. Outcome 3b: The project team was also successful in enhancing the outcomes of two other NSF projects in the area of visualization (NSF CI_TEAM Award #1041306 and NSF IEECI Award #0935089). Specifically, the SustainCity software was a result of the synergy between the three awards. Outcome 3c: The VADS system was demonstrated to students from Stratford Magnet High School. Stratford has expressed interest in deploying VADS in the gaming and simulation class. References Asmah Muallem, Sachin Shetty, S.K. Hargrove, Virtual Reality Based Visualization for Structural Health Monitoring Analysis. In Computer Applications in Industry and Engineering 2011 Asmah Muallem, Sachin Shetty, and S. K. Hargrove, "Visualizing Geolocation of Spam Email", IEEE Computing, Communications and Applications Conference (ComComAp), April 1-5, 2013, Hong Kong. Husam Adas, Sachin Shetty, and S. K. Hargrove, "Virtual and Augmented Reality Based Assembly Design System for Personalized Learning", IEEE Science and Information Conference, October 7 - 9, 2013, London, United Kingdom Asmah Muallem, "Virtual Reality Based Visualization for Structural Health Monitoring Analysis", Sponsored by Emerging Researchers National conference in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, Atlanta, GA, February 23, 2012. Husam Adas, " Assessment and Development of a Virtual and Augmented Reality Based Assembly Design System", Sponsored by Emerging Researchers National conference in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, Atlanta, GA, February 23, 2012. Benjamin Morton and Stephanie Starling, " A VAR System for Teaching and Learning in Mechanical Engineering", Sponsored by Emerging Researchers National conference in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, Washington D.C. February 2013.
