On day one of the 2018 Virtual Reality (VR) Workshop held in Monroe Hall at Edmonds Community College, it was all “real” and “virtual” at the same time. Educators, 14 of them in total, came from as far away as Southern California to learn how to use VR in their classrooms to teach digital manufacturing.
The workshop is the brainchild of Dr. Magesh Chandramouli who started the MANEUVER (Manufacturing Education Using Virtual Environment Resources) project, based at Purdue University. It is focused on developing an affordable VR framework to address the demand for well-trained digital manufacturing (DM) technicians.
The two-day workshop was hosted by the TEAMM project and started out with sessions dedicated to manufacturing and a tour of Monroe Hall (which has served as the home to multiple National Science Foundation grant-funded projects including the National Resource Center for Materials Education – MatEdU).
This amazing building is the 11,000 square foot home for almost $2,000,000 of machines and tools offering a variety you won’t find on very many college campuses. It is also where The Facility, a new type of makerspace exists – that fuses college access and community access.
Here’s more of what took place on day one and day two of the VR Workshop:
- Demos of Traditional and Digital Technologies
- Introduction to Virtual Reality
- Types and Uses (Google Cardboard Build)
- Terminology
- Opportunities (Advantages/Disadvantages)
- Current technology and expected development (HoloLens practice)
- Unpack and set-up VR equipment (using the Dell Visor)
- MANEUVER website (We are creating a resource post that we believe you will find useful, stay tuned)
- Design Opportunities in Virtual Reality
- Case Studies: VR in a Classroom
- How is it being used
- What are the challenges / rewards
On day two, participants focused on a group project planning incorporation of VR into an actual lesson.
Here are photos from the event:
Additional resources:
From their website: “Project MANEUVER (Manufacturing Education Using Virtual Environment Resources) is developing an affordable virtual reality (VR) framework to address the imminent demand for well-trained digital manufacturing (DM) technicians. Over half of the 3.5 million required manufacturing positions in the US are expected to go unfilled due to a “skills gap”. Employment projections show a decline in conventional manufacturing jobs with marked growth in DM jobs.
“This VR instructional framework, targeted at two and four year programs, will not only advance the field of DM, but will also strengthen education by remedying the lack of clearly defined career/educational pathway(s) for entry-level DM technicians.”
AM News originally reported on this workshop: Virtual Reality Workshop For Digital Manufacturing Education.