Advanced Virtual Manufacturing Lab

Supporting Advanced Manufacturing Education through AR

THE significant gap in STEM skills cannot be bridged quickly enough by relying solely on classroom teaching and physical laboratory training. Among the different STEM fields/subjects, advanced manufacturing has received special attention as a US national interest area. There are currently more than 600,000 unfilled manufacturing positions, due to the lack of skilled workers, and this number is anticipated to reach 2 million by 2025. Virtual Reality (VR) is being utilized as a tool to help overcome some of the limitations,

Among the efforts conducted to develop and assess advanced VR technology to bridge the STEM skill gap is VOTE (Virtual reality based Online Technology and Engineering) platform with the AVML (Advanced Virtual Manufacturing Lab, [5, 6]) as the VR module introducing students to the principles of CNC milling & turning and providing them with effective training on these advanced manufacturing systems.

The AVML includes advanced multimedia lectures delivered using near-photorealistic intelligent virtual tutors and hands-on training on high fidelity realistic virtual CNC milling machines and lathes. The AVML uses the following modules: an object- oriented scene-graph engine for displaying and navigating in 3D environments (this includes octree solid modeling for fast geometric simulation of the cutting process) [5,6,7]; a machining process simulator (to discretize the tool-motion and predict the cutting forces, cutting sounds, and chip separation) [5]; a CNC milling machine logic engine (including an emulator of the machine controller software and a G-code interpreter), and lecture delivery and process training intelligent agent engine.

Supporting the vision and leadership of Dr. Hazim El-Mounayri, the AVML project was an ongoing student-led research project in partnership between the IUPUI Center for Research and Learning and the Department of Mechanical Engineering where Dr. Rogers served as a mentor overseeing usability and assessment on the project.

Funding Support for this work

  • El-Mounayri, H., Rogers, C. B., Frend, C., Wasfy, T. M., Satterwhite, J. (2018) Assessment of Mixed-Reality virtual environment for STEM learning - Part 2 - Center for Research & Learning - $1,599.00
  • El-Mounayri, H., Rogers, C. B., Frend, C., Wasfy, T. M., Satterwhite, J. (2017) Assessment of Mixed-Reality virtual environment for STEM learning - Part 1 - Center for Research & Learning - $2,000.00
  • El-Mounayri, H., Wasfy, T., Fernandez, E., Rogers, C., Peters, J., (2014) Assessment of the impact of next generation augmented virtual reality (VR) technology on STEM e-learning. MURI - $10,700.00
  • Rogers C. (2014) Overseas Conference Grant, Indiana University - $1,000.00

Papers in Refereed Journals

  • Rogers, C., El-Mounaryi, H., Wasfy, T., Satterwhite, J., (2018) Assessment of STEM e-Learning in an Immersive Virtual Reality (VR) Environment, Journal of Computers in Education
Advanced Virtual Manufacturing Lab