Assessing the Use of Virtual Reality to Support Additive Manufacturing Education

该项目旨在通过改善增材制造教育服务于国家利益。预计到2025年底，全球增材制造市场的价值将超过400亿美元。因此，对增材制造劳动力发展的需求正在增加，大学正在开发新的课程和项目来满足这一需求。不幸的是，使用增材制造工具和技术的实验室实践经验并不总是很容易获得。例如，由于其成本和维护的复杂性，高端工业机器很少在教室环境中找到。虚拟现实提供了一种潜在的吸引人的方式，让学生以低成本有效地接触到这些工业增材制造机器。该提案将以三个工程设计和制造课程为重点，以虚拟现实为基础的教育方法取代传统的计算机辅助设计活动。项目团队将进行一项研究，分析虚拟现实方法如何影响学生解释复杂设计和复杂增材制造工艺的能力。它还将研究虚拟现实方法如何影响学生在不同工程环境中应用特定过程设计考虑的能力。预计虚拟现实方法将改善学生的学习，并更好地为他们在增材制造劳动力中取得成功做好准备。本研究的目的是确定沉浸式虚拟构建环境如何影响学生在学习以设计和流程为中心的增材制造概念时的认知负荷。智力交付成果将是(i)使用虚拟现实来理解不同的增材制造工艺类型（例如桌面材料挤压）时识别学习差异；（ii）在增材制造设计评估过程中，虚拟现实对学生认知负荷影响的定量证据，以及（iii）理解将虚拟现实集成到学生的工程设计过程中以支持特定工艺的先进制造教育的可行性。这些成果将通过对600多名高级工程设计和制造专业本科生进行实证研究而产生。为了确保教育成果的稳健性，将与宾夕法尼亚州立莱昂哈德工程教育增强中心合作，在整个项目中提供形成性和总结性反馈。这些教育发现将通过与美国制造合作，以及宾夕法尼亚州立大学位于联邦各地的24个校区，在全国范围内传播。NSF IUSE: EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过参与学生学习轨道，该计划支持有前途的实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving additive manufacturing education. The global additive manufacturing market is expected to reach a value over $40 billion by the end of 2025. As a result, demand is increasing for additive manufacturing workforce development, and universities are developing new courses and programs to meet this demand. Unfortunately, hands-on laboratory experiences with additive manufacturing tools and technologies are not always easily available. For example, due to their cost and complexity of maintenance, high-end industrial machines are rarely found in a classroom setting. Virtual reality offers a potential engaging way to expose students effectively and at low cost to these industrial additive manufacturing machines. Focusing on three engineering design and manufacturing courses, this proposal will replace traditional computer-aided design activities with virtual reality-based educational approaches. The project team will conduct a research study to analyze how the virtual reality approaches affect students’ ability to interpret intricate designs and complex additive manufacturing processes. It will also examine how the virtual reality approach affects students’ ability to apply process-specific design considerations in different engineering contexts. It is expected that the virtual reality approaches will improve students’ learning and better prepare them for success in the additive manufacturing workforce.The objective of this research is to determine how an immersive virtual build environment affects a student’s cognitive load when learning design- and process-centric additive manufacturing concepts. The intellectual deliverables will be (i) identification of learning differences when using virtual reality to understand different additive manufacturing process types (e.g., desktop material extrusion; industrial powder-bed fusion), (ii) quantitative evidence of the impact of virtual reality on student cognitive load during additive manufacturing design evaluation, and (iii) understanding the viability of integrating virtual reality into a student’s engineering design process to support process-specific advanced manufacturing education. These deliverables will be produced through empirical studies conducted with more than 600 upper-level undergraduate engineering design and manufacturing students. To ensure robustness of the educational findings, formative and summative feedback will be provided throughout the project in partnership with the Pennsylvania State Leonhard Center for Enhancement of Engineering Education. The educational findings will be disseminated nationally through partnership with America Makes along with Penn State’s 24 campuses located throughout the commonwealth. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.