The engineering students understand the engineering concepts effectively when they conduct the experiments in the laboratory. Hence, laboratory is as important as theory; however, the ill-equipped ...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2347631120970757

Virtual Laboratory: A Boon to the Mechanical Engineering Education During Covid-19 Pandemic

Laboratory experimentation has a vital role in science education With the potential offered by information and communication technologies for the educational domain, virtual laboratories have emerged as a valuable alternative to face-to-face, hands-on laboratories Moreover, the possibility of virtual laboratories opens new perspectives for higher education sustainability They are a perfect approach for training learners to understand scientific principles in many fields of science by offering them the possibility to illustrate the scientific phenomena through automated and virtual practical activities that employ computer simulation In this work, we present the use of computer simulation combined with the JavaScript programming language for the development of a low-cost virtual laboratory integrated into an interactive learning environment based on the Moodle platform The methodology was based on the instructional design model ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation), which structures the development planning of online teaching resources in different stages (analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation) The virtual laboratory was developed by Moroccan universities, with the help of European partners, and it was implemented in the 12 science faculties in Morocco It presents a great choice for supporting laboratory activities for learners in the first year of their bachelor’s degree program This virtual laboratory includes 12 virtual practical activities mapped to the physics curriculum, and they can be operated via the Internet on computers The proposed virtual learning environment was evaluated by teachers and learners from the science faculties The obtained results, together with similar findings from other studies, indicate the positive impact of the use of a virtual laboratory on learning outcomes, and support the adoption of the proposed learning environment in laboratory educational procedures as an alternative to physical laboratories

Design and Implementation of a Virtual Laboratory for Physics Subjects in Moroccan Universities

This study aimed to analyze the use of technology in the form of virtual laboratories in learning, including: (1) problems that cause the use of virtual laboratories in learning, (2) variables that are influenced by the use of virtual laboratories in learning, and (3) Scientific fields that utilize virtual laboratories in learning. The research method used was a meta-analysis with a sample of 30 international journal articles. Data collection was done by collecting similar scientific articles related to virtual laboratories and then analyzing them. The results of this meta-analysis study indicate that the main problem that causes the use of virtual laboratories in learning is the low understanding of students' concepts of learning topics. Furthermore, the variable most affected by the use of virtual laboratories is student achievement. Finally, the scientific field that most often utilizes virtual laboratories in learning is Physics.

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The Utilization of Virtual Laboratory in Learning: A Meta-Analysis

Current times are accelerating new technologies to provide high-quality education for remote collaboration, as well as hands-on learning. This is particularly important in the case of laboratory-based classes, which play an essential role in STEM education. In this paper, we introduce ColabAR, a toolkit that uses physical proxies to manipulate virtual objects in Tangible Augmented Reality (TAR) laboratories. ColabAR introduces haptic-based customizable interaction techniques to promote remote collaboration between students. Our toolkit provides hardware and software that enable haptic feedback to improve user experience and promote collaboration during learning. Also, we present the architecture of our cloud platform for haptic interaction that supports information sharing between students in a TAR laboratory. We performed two user studies (N=40) to test the effect of our toolkit in enriching local and remote collaborative experiences. Finally, we demonstrated that our TAR laboratory enables students' performance (i.e., lab completion rate, lab scores) to be similar to their performance in an in-person laboratory.

ColabAR: A Toolkit for Remote Collaboration in Tangible Augmented Reality Laboratories

Study on wave slamming characteristics of a typical floating wind turbine under freak waves


 Physical laboratory experiments are built to provide students with hands-on opportunities and have long been crucial for engineering training. However, due to the rapid growth in number of enrollments, limited and shared space, undergraduate students have experienced an increasing difficulty gaining valuable hands on experience in the lab. While traditional lab should never be abandoned, adding virtual labs to assist with it could benefit students without the limitation of enrollment capacity or lab availability. In this paper, we discussed a pilot study of developing a virtual fluid mechanics laboratory to supplement existing physical lab exercises.
 The virtual lab was designed to enrich students’ lab experience, stimulate interests, and bring more individual exercise time. It was developed to contain two components: a virtual lab tour and a virtual reality (VR) simulated pump experiment. The virtual tours served as a pre-lab instruction tool that provided students with an overview of the fluid mechanics lab. The VR pump experiment replicated the physical experience of performing the physical lab.
 Preliminary feedbacks were positive for both components of the virtual lab. Students considered that the virtual tours were very informative and useful, while that the VR pump lab was intuitive and time-saving. This proved that with realistic lab simulations, the virtual lab had great potential to provide students more flexibility to perform hands-on experiment and to develop technical acumen outside of the physical classroom. Further improvement was discussed to implement in the next stage to create more immersive experience in assistance of the lab instruction.

Xin Wang

Papers

Development of a Virtual Lab in Assistance of a Fluid Mechanics Laboratory Instruction

Experimental investigation of freak wave actions on a floating platform and effects of the air gap