The main objective of the AVATAR Erasmus+ project is to support and facilitate the adoption of VR/AR technologies in engineering curricula. Within the set of advanced digital technologies in fact, AR and VR have the following characteristics and advantages: 1. AR is able to provide a more understandable perspective on engineering problems, using a three-dimensional experience (VR) to leverage on visuo-spatial ability of the students. 2. AR is the right tool to deliver meaningful set of information to specific geometrical locations, providing the students a deeper understanding. 3. VR/AR-enabled telepresence enables high-quality distance and self-learning, being able to provide the students a rich experience even if they cannot access laboratorial facilities and/or get in touch with real components. To pursue this objective a set of workflows will be developed, describing and formalizing how to implement learning activities in engineering taking advantage of VR/AR tools. The workflows will be organized in three clusters: 1. Learning approaches for experiencing/developing VR/AR technologies to support the use and implementation of AR/VR tools (e.g., how to build a 3D scene for VR, how to prepare and organize contents for VR/AR, how to address interactivity in VR/AR). 2. Learning approaches using AR/VR within integrated engineering approaches to provide a better and deeper understanding of engineering problems (e.g., in the design of a manufacturing system and/or in the definition of detailed trajectories in robotized assembly processes). 3. AR/VR as an innovative environment for learning assessment addressing address how to implement assessment tools (exercises, quizzes, polls, etc.) within VR/AR environments. This training program is taking benefit of the research effort of the four partners in the last decades to transform it as efficient curricula content. Within a very evolving technological context (i.e., VR/AR/Robotics), every partner has developed his own know-how that will be made available within a common standard environment to support integration and interoperability of different approaches. The four partners have technological facilities for VR, AR and robotics usable for training, developing and testing the AVATAR workflows. This knowledge will be shared in open access for any other partners which expect to contribute in this direction for non-profit use taking advantage of existing European sharing platforms for learning resources. Beside this, the AVATAR also aims to build a collaboration culture between young engineers in Europe working together in a multidisciplinary and international environment. Collaborative projects will be organized where students are trained to Virtual Reality and Augmented reality technologies and develop some technological bricks to demonstrate the applicability of VR and AR within an industrial context. The project will involve 15 master students a year from the three countries to collaboratively work on an industrial problem through international teams. They will take advantage of the developed workflow to address the problem to study and wil be able to test, validate and extend them, and deliver a workflow demonstrator, a documentation of the work done (video, tutorials, etc) and contribution to the guidelines for the adoption of the workflows in engineering curricula. The teacher team is involved to promote the adoption of these workflows within their own lectures or within their institution curricula. Strategies will be investigating to enlarge the pilot phase for the AVATAR workflows to new universities. Finally, a multiplier event will be organized in the last year to promote the use of the project results by third parties and disseminate the results.
The project is two-fold. First, it expects to create a new curriculum about XR technologies for design and/or manufacturing engineers. By joining efforts of three different countries, of 4 partners involved within design and manufacturing university departments and research centers, the project expected them to build some common practices. It is not a matter of standardization of technological device and software, but it expects some abstract common workflows. But indeed it also aims to create a new network of young students able to communicate and to deploy this learning through Europe. By inviting about 15 students a year to follow this new training semester, by the creation of a joint learning lab where they meet all together during one week, we initiated the networking. We supported learning by doing operations. That means that teachers and engineers work all together to create comfortable lab work conditions for students, but student projects consolidated the technical background of partner teams.
XR technologies have evolved considerably since 2010, gaining in maturity and use in a wide range of areas, particularly in consumer applications, such as video games. In professional applications, particularly manufacturing production systems, XR 4.0 is very much in vogue. Manufacturers are keen to seize the opportunities offered by XR, but are reluctant to take the plunge. In fact, they lack skilled professionals to specify uses, develop appropriate tools and ensure the deployment of technologies. The partners have decided to develop an XR training method suitable for deployment in engineering courses, while at the same time contributing to the sharing of knowledge between European students.