DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A VIRTUAL LABORATORY FOR MACHINE DYNAMICS Design and Implementation of a Virtual Laboratory for Machine Dynamics doi:10.3991/ijoe.v6i2.1184 El-Sayed Aziz, Sven K. Esche and Constantin Chassapis Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, USA Abstract—Laboratory experiments are considered to be a crucial component of engineering and science curricula by all stakeholders in the education process. In traditional laboratories, students develop practical skills and become effective professionals. However, the major drawbacks of traditional laboratories are their high demand on resources, significant maintenance costs and the inability to delivery the laboratory content in distance education. Virtual laboratory experiments represent a valuable option for educational laboratories, due to their advantages over traditional hands-on as well as remote experiments, including the ease of reconfiguring the experimental system, the high flexibility in the input specifications, the possibility of conducting experiments using devices otherwise infeasible and the option of re-running experiments multiple times. In response to the need for developing laboratory resources that provide a practical experience to online engineering students, this paper describes a simulation-based virtual laboratory, which is used at Stevens Institute of Technology (SIT) in a junior-level course on mechanisms and machine dynamics as a compliment to experimental work in the traditional hands-on laboratory. This virtual laboratory system alleviates the space, time and cost constraints associated with traditional laboratories and serves as an efficient teaching aid. It conveys to the students practical issues associated with actual experiments and provides learning outcomes that are comparable to those of traditional physical laboratories. The students have the opportunity to explore a wide range of experimental configurations and parameters. In addition, the system includes a realistic rendering of the experimental setup and its components, thus providing the students with a strong feeling of immersion, as if they were performing an experiment in a traditional laboratory. Index Terms—Virtual Experiment, Virtual Learning Environment; Simulation, Internet, Control, Machine Dynamics I. INTRODUCTION Recently, many engineering education institutions have been focusing on innovation in pedagogy and developing new high-quality curricula for traditional and non- traditional students, which also satisfy the ABET 2000 criteria. Some studies [1,2] reported in the education literature indicate that information technologies can be used to enhance learning by offering distance education courses and online laboratories via the Internet, where learners are given flexibility in choosing the place, time and pace of studying. Despite the past and continuing success in the development of online learning offerings, the absence of tools for providing an online laboratory experience prevents the introduction of online undergraduate programs in certain fields [3]. In undergraduate mechanical engineering programs, for which laboratory sessions are deemed indispensable, students are expected to develop hands-on laboratory skills in order to complete the degree requirements. The acquisition and maintenance costs of laboratory equipment in conjunction with the space required to house it put a great burden on today’s undergraduate engineering education institutions. In the traditional hands-on mode of laboratory operation, multiple copies of the same hardware are needed in order to accommodate all students enrolled in a class. This approach often turns out to be prohibitive due to resource limitations. Furthermore, hardware-based laboratory exercises typically offer only limited features, and because of their weight and size, most experimental devices are not suitable to be taken to the classroom. At the same time, student enrollments in engineering schools are increasing while the allocated laboratory resources do not keep up with this increase. In this environment of constrained resources, it thus becomes increasingly difficult for educational institutions to provide an adequate laboratory experiences to their undergraduate students. The research efforts described in this paper represent an attempt to find alternatives or complements to hands-on laboratories for delivering experimental experiences to on-campus as well as off- campus students. Some of the above-mentioned problems can be solved using the concept of virtual learning environments for conducting experiments without expensive physical laboratory setups [4,5]. A virtual learning environment is a set of teaching and learning tools designed to enhance the students’ learning experience by distributing educational content in a digital format (texts, images, audio, simulations, games, etc.) via the Internet. In this concept, the Internet is providing a real-time tool that eliminates space and time constraints and allows the sharing of high- quality educational software applications (online simulations), which have been demonstrated to be popular and intuitive to use [6]. Online simulations have the potential to add significant value to corporate training environments by helping the students to become familiarized with the equipment before conducting traditional hands-on laboratory exercises. Therefore, the students’ activities can focus more on understanding the underlying fundamental concepts rather than on performing tedious set-up, calibration and measurement procedures, and they can thus devote a larger portion of their time to discussions of the experimental results and observations. Furthermore, due to their ability to obtain and analyze the measured date quickly and efficiently, iJOE – Volume 6, Issue 2, May 2010 15