Collaborative Research: Use of Haptics in a Virtual Reality Environment for Learning Nanotechnology

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5) This engineering education research award to the University of Florida in collaboration with Virginia Commonwealth University will employ researchers to develop interactive virtual reality modules with haptic feedback to improve learning and promote interest in nanotechnology concepts. The modules will be used to support active learning for both normally sighted and visually impaired students with low-cost haptics providing feedback that does not rely on vision. Nanotechnology and nano-scale physics concepts are difficult for students to grasp, and use of these modules by high school students will increase interest in this important and rapidly evolving area of technology. In addition, the assessment of the benefit of haptic feedback in virtual reality simulation modules can lead to new understanding of the educational use of feedback that is not vision-based. This will have application to a broad range of the engineering curriculum and can increase the number of successful engineering students who are well prepared for engineering jobs.