VELVI - Virtual Environments based Laboratories for Village Institutes

Description

Project VELVI - Virtual Environments based Laboratories for Village Institutes

In the midst of pandemic, the world is experiencing a major shift in the way students learn, train, and communicate. From plain text, images and audio/video, the scholls rapidly adopted technology and has become the norm. Although augmented and virtual reality technology is still in the early stages of development, instructors in K-12 and higher education have become increasingly open to making it a staple of classroom instruction [1].

The pandemic has also accelerated adaptation of Immersive Technology in many corners of human life. It is broadly known as Experiential Technology or Digital Experience, from being an esoteric and expensive niche, has progressed rapidly to become both affordable and, more importantly, readily available to the common man. Experiential Technology includes Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality(MR), Haptics, but not limited to, Digital Twins, 3D Printing and Digital Imagery to simulate the world more realistically than ever before.

Problem Statement:

During this pandemic, although many technology tools could be harnessed for online classes, most school children are devoid of practical laboratory classes. Immersive Technologies could be harnessed to increasing access to practical education (specifically laboratory exercises).

Rapid advances in immersive technology to engage children in interactive laboratory classes could be crucial in all learning processes. Since the Immersive experiences are varied in nature it is a source of excitement and learning for the child and participation is enhanced.

The Initiative

IIT Madras pCoE in Virtual Reality and Haptics will setup virtual laboratory zones for the few private and Corporation school children in Tamilnadu at a small level initially, and then scale to other states after initial validation.

Technology Development and Dissemination Plan

Similar to the MIT-Inventor App, we will develop an App for VR-Laboratory that the teachers and the school children could use. Currently MIT Inventor App does not support VR/AR/MR.
We will explore existing platforms such as NVIDIA and other physics engines for making Apps.
We will develop several laboratories for different grades for CBSE syllabus (Std 6th - 10th)
We will develop laboratory modules for Physics, Chemistry, and Biology
We will test it in the corporation schools in Chennai
The VR-Lab modules will be available for different platforms: Smartphones, WebXR, Oculus
Specialty Space for VR Laboratories in the corporate schools

Societal Impact

It is envisaged that this initiative will benefit atleast 1000 high school children, 10 rural high schools each with 100 students, in few states to avail the VELVI solution. It is expected that such solutions are likely to change long-term management for such children. After successful implementation, this initiative will be scaled with the other states in the country who will be willing to take our developed technology.

To ensure that the VELVI solutions are fully utilized, we will work initially with the Tamilnadu government Department of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj for developing, testing and validation. After validation, the system will be scaled to other states.

Deliverables:

A simple easy to program platform for teachers to design and develop laboratory exercises, in the similar line of MIT Inventor App
The students and teachers could design and develop laboratory exercises themselves.
Initially game developers will be developing necessary VR-laboratory modules which the school teachers and the students can customize and adapt if for any variation.
Gamified laboratoryModules that can be customizable by the teachers
Real time feedback of parameters to the students on their performance for improved learning
Specialty Space for Laboratory at the schools: Model VR-Laboratory at few schools

Coordinator:

Prof.M.Manivannan, Department of Applied Mechanics, and Coordinator of IoE-CoE on VR and Haptics