Virtual and Augmented Reality in Design for Manufacture

The project title “Virtual and Augmented Reality in Design for Manufacture" with a number of 2017-1-TR01-KA202-45941, coordinated by Bursa Uludag University, was supported within the scope of EU Erasmus + Vocational Education Strategic Partnership Projects.                          

With this project, Virtual and Augmented reality applications were developed in order to improve the teaching and learning performance of Technical Drawing and Standards.

The rate of scrap products resulting from employee errors may threat companies that utilize high technology. Both schools and enterprises should develop solid training programs in order to minimize employee related problems. Amajority of the training takes place to improve the advance skills of reading Technical Drawings (TD) that are believed to have a significant impact on scrap ratesin the sector, but to be insufficient. This deficiency of the training stems from either the fact that the education provided at schools including vocational high schools, vocational schools, and engineering faculties does not include practical applications or the standards for these skills are updated very often.
In order to respond to this need and close the skill gap due to lack of education, the project has been started to develop Virtual and Augmented Reality (V/AR) applications that would be used in Vocational Education Technical Drawing courses. Within the scope of this two-year long project; it is aimed to transfer the topics that are thought to be the most deficient issues in the vocational trainings of Technical Drawing and Standards used in machinery and manufacturing sector to V/AR environment in order to make them more efficient in three dimensional environment especially with the help of mobile applications. The projecthas been executedunder the coordination of Uludağ University and the partnership with Huddersfield University in England, Sofia Technical University in Bulgaria and Bizpark Bilisim Ind. Trade. Co. Ltd. located in ULUTEK Technopark. In this context, the development process of V/AR applications includeda needs analysis, determining the content based on the results of the needsanalysis, the development of applications for the content, and a pilot implementation stage in which the contribution to learning performance is assessed.
Within the scope of the project, firstly 30 animations in 18 separate scenes under six units were developed for AR applications that were preferred over VR due to the headset and other equipment requirements. In addition, 12 animated videos were developed and uploaded to the project website to support both VR and AR applications. Moreover, a special scene and menu structure that includes six topics for VR application wasutilized to be used with a mobile phone with the help of a specific“cardboard.”The links with all developed applications, supporting materials and animations are available for free of charge on the project website:  “vrindesign.org.”
Currently, test and improvement phases of the both applications have been continued. In this context, in order to determine the contribution of the applications to learning outcomes, a pilot study was designed based on an experimental research design with control group. The data were collected by a conceptual comprehensiontest and an achievement test that were developed in regard to V/AR supported Technical Drawing subjects. Preliminary results showed that students who were trained with V/AR applications have 20% higher performance or learning outcomes than control group. V/AR applications and the other outcomes of the project, their pedagogical background construction and product development demonstrated a vibrant international collaboration, are expected to have great impact on the individuals who seek quality training about technical drawings from vocational high school to engineering schools and even in vocational training at work.