Tobias R. Ortelt

Development of a tele-operative testing cell as a remote lab for material characterization

Laboratory experiments play a significant role in engineering education. The experience gathered during the labs is one of the most important experiences during studying engineering because there is a strong connection between theory and practical relevance. A tele-operative testing cell for material characterization for forming processes is presented. This testing cell is used as a remote lab so that students can gain their experiences location and time-independent via the internet. In addition, the tele-operative testing cell is also used within the scope of lectures to combine the theory with live experiments in interaction with the students. The main aspects are, on the one hand, the developments in the field of engineering and the implementation of the IT components like iLab and, on the other hand, the integration of the tele-operative testing cell into engineering education.

Using Remote Laboratories for Transnational Online Learning Environments in Engineering Education

Working in transnational contexts will be the normal case for the future, especially for engineers. In general this competence can be gained by going abroad during the course of studies. However, not every student can afford going abroad. E-learning technologies can help connect students in different countries and have them work together. Especially for the engineering context, remote laboratories are a very promising technology. With the help of these laboratories, students can perform real live online experiments from their devices at home. Connecting students via the internet and combine this with online experimentation leads to international working groups. The presented course follows such a concept. The online course was developed to prepare students for an international work environment and for a stay in Germany. The use of remote laboratories plays an important role. The course concept and findings are explained on the basis of the first course edition in 2014.

Remote labs in ELLI: Lab experience for every student with two different approaches

With the goal of extending the possibilities for practical experience in engineering tasks, the project ELLI (Excellent Teaching and Learning in Engineering Sciences) follows the idea of providing virtual and remote labs for students, teachers and even interested people from different disciplines, countries or skill levels. To integrate these labs into the existing curriculum and to get students and teachers used to this tool are challenging processes. Moreover, the technical development of the remote labs is as much important as the integration to an e-learning environment. Two different approaches for the development and the integration are described.

More Than “Did You Read the Script?”

Project ELLI (Excellent Teaching and Learning in Engineering Science) is a joint project of the three German universities RWTH Aachen, TU Dortmund University and Ruhr-University Bochum. Considering teachers’ and learners’ perspectives, the project aims to improve existing concepts in higher engineering education and to develop new innovative approaches. In the past years, a pool of remote and virtual labs has been developed and set up in order to gain flexibility in the usage of experimental equipment in different pre-set scenarios. Teachers can either use these virtual and remote laboratories in class for demonstrating engineering practice whereas the labs can support students to individually discover scientific concepts.

Development of a tele-operative control for the incremental tube forming process and its integration into a learning environment

A deficient access to experimental equipment leads to the usage of remote labs to improve engineering education and open experiments for every student location - and time - independent. The usage of a tele-operative controlled industrial bending process in lecture combines theoretical learning contents with practical experiences. Lecturers can make experiments in interaction with the students, who are able to assist in choosing the process values. The chosen and presented bending process is the incremental tube forming process that uses in contrast to many ordinary bending processes targeted the superposition of stresses. By superposing of stresses, in this process for example a tube bending and a tube spinning process, several fundamental process characteristics can be observed and integrated into lectures to visualize the theoretical fundamentals behind. Incremental tube forming combines the tube spinning process, which affects the diameter of the tube all along the tube and creates a compressive stress, and a bending process. The understanding of superposition of stresses and the process phenomena are ambitious, so that experimental experience is very useful. By using a tele-operative control, the experiment is location- and time-independent available for lecturers and students all over the world. They can interact with the process like stopping it, influencing it during the process or laying it up. The possibilities for a usage in learning environments are described and pointed out.

Demonstration of deep drawing experiments in a remote lab environment

Understanding fundamental process limits is a crucial skill for all types of engineers. In mechanical engineering, this especially applies to the field of metal forming. To have the students understand the different limits of the commonly used deep drawing process, e.g. the influence of the clamping force, a tele-operative testing cell was developed at the Institute of Forming Technology and Lightweight Components of TU Dortmund University. The live experiments that can be conducted using this testing cell are included in different lectures as well as in remote labs which are accessible online for students around the world. In either case, the experiments are used to have the students realize on their own what different types of limits exist and when they occur.

Development of a FEM-lab for the virtual experimentation in forming processes

In nowadays engineering, the ability to use and understand Finite-Element-Method (FEM) simulation software has become a crucial skill. If applied correctly, it can provide insight into various processes, such as forming operations, without the need to actually perform the real experiment. A novel, fully virtual FEM-Lab is currently under development at the Institute of Forming Technology and Lightweight Components of TU Dortmund University, giving access to undergraduate students so they can learn about forming processes in detail by actively changing the process parameters. Fundamental knowledge about Finite-Element-Analysis (FEA) is provided during numerical experimentation such that previous knowledge is not necessary to use this kind of virtual laboratory.

Virtual lab for material testing using the Oculus Rift

A virtual lab with different material testing experiments in the field of forming technology is presented. Within a virtual environment, developed for the Oculus Rift, users can interact with the virtual test equipment to setup and conduct a tensile as well as a deep drawing test. The user can choose to hide different objects to gain an unobstructed view on the forming process which is impossible in actual experiments due to non-transparent machine parts. A variety of parameters can be altered in order to simulate different aspects of the depicted experiments.

Internationalization and Digitalization in Engineering Education

Digital, virtual and E-learning elements have increasingly become a part in higher education and, most recently, the high potential of digitalization for processes of strategic internationalization of higher education institutions is coming into focus. The collaborative project of three German universities, XYZ, is working on strategies for the internationalization and virtualization of engineering education. While these topics used to be different key areas of the project, a combination of both distinguished itself as a potential new working field. This paper introduces two pilot concepts that were implemented and evaluated at the universities Y and Z which both aim at the complementation of incoming students’ experiences in Germany by digital means. At Y, a transnational online class explores means of preparing degree-mobile engineering students from all over the world for their master’s studies in Germany. At Z, an online course was designed to accompany a summer school research exchange for US-American engineering students in order to prolong their short-term mobility by digital elements. These pilot projects were well-accepted by students and faculty at both universities and their evaluations between 2014 and 2017 have revealed valuable results for further optimization. This paper presents the results and discusses future potential.

The evaluation of remote laboratories: Development and application of a holistic model for the evaluation of online remote laboratories in manufacturing technology education

The integration of online remote laboratories is still an emerging field in engineering education, especially in the area of manufacturing technology. Over the last years and in different project contexts the Institute of Forming Technology and Lightweight Construction (IUL) and the Center for Higher Education (zhb) at TU Dortmund University developed a laboratory environment, which gives the opportunity to the students to do experiments like the tensile tests-a core experiment for defining material properties-from the computer at home using online technology. This system already has been used in different teaching contexts and its usage is now expanded step by step to other courses. Hence, its practice-based evaluation is coming more and more into focus in order to improve the technical equipment as well as its imbedding into the educational settings. This means that not only the technology and its functionality are evaluated but also a special focus has to be put on the student-computer interaction. Therefore a holistic model for evaluating the system and its usage has been developed. This model divides into three different perspectives for evaluation: (1) The individual perspective focusing the users learning process in the laboratory environment, (2) the system-perspective focusing the technical equipment, and finally (3) the course perspective focusing the labs integration into the course context. This evaluation model was inspired by several other evaluation approaches existing in literature. The aim was to work out both, a model that serves as a fitting evaluation process for the explicit context existing at TU Dortmund University and at the same time as an adequate approach for other remote laboratory contexts. This paper presents the evaluation model with its perspectives as well as the used questionnaires and its first application in context of an international online course making use of the IULs remote lab.