Toshiro Kobayashi

US Students Carry out Nuclear Safety Project in a Virtual Environment

Abstract A project about nuclear safety was carried out through e-learning. It was a problem based learning (PBL) activity that took place in Second Life (SL), an online three-dimensional community. The virtual classroom was built on an island owned by Nagaoka University of Technology, Japan. Three students from a high school near Clarkson University participated in this project. A teacher gave them a short lesson about nuclear energy safety and then proposed the problem. The students understood the contents very well and solved the problem through voice chat interactions in SL. They engaged in active discussions and displayed high interest for the safe use of nuclear energy throughout this successful project. The results clearly indicate that this type of PBL class is possible for actual e-learning about nuclear safety and for engineering education.

Nuclear Energy Safety Project in Metaverse

This project for learning nuclear energy safety was carried out through e-learning. Problem Based Learning (PBL) was selected as the educational tool and Metaverse as the class environment. The virtual classroom was built on a virtual island of Second Life owned by Nagaoka University of Technology. Three students from two National Technical Colleges in Japan joined the project. A teacher gave the students a short lecture and proposed the problem. Students understood the contents very well and solved the problem through chat-based discussions in Metaverse. Students’ clear and precise understanding, their high activeness of discussion and high interest for the safety of nuclear energy was apparent throughout this successful PBL class project. The results indicate very clearly that this kind of PBL class was obviously possible for actual e-learning in nuclear engineering and engineering education.

Problem Based Learning for US and Japan Students in a Virtual Environment

Problem Based Learning (PBL) is important for engineering education and has been a tool for creative engineering design. It can enhance creativity and has been used to successfully carry out many experiments in the real world. Researchers in the US and Japan (the authors) are pursuing studies to determine the effectiveness of its use in a virtual environment, one with cutting-edge technology and opportunities for complementary activities between face to face learning and electronic learning. Here students can work from anywhere in the world, at any time, and at their own pace. For this project, student teams from the US and Japan were asked to solve problems in a virtual community. Each team worked independently on a different project. The US team designed and built a car for the future, while the Japan team focused on designing a safe way for using nuclear energy. A discussion about the US team’s successful project is provided.

Virtual STEM Class for Nuclear Safety Education in Metaverse

Abstract The blend education of e-learning and hands-on activity was carried out, using Metaverse. The topic was picked up, relating to radioactivity, nuclear safety education and STEM education. The students were six 5 th and 6 th graders in an elementary school. The lecture was given to them through the virtual class in Metaverse (Second Life). And then, the hands-on experiments relating to radioactivity were carried out in real life, lead and guided by the teacher in Second Life synchronistically and supported by the teacher in real life sometimes. The questionnaire given to each of students after the hands-on experiments showed very clearly that the project satisfied with the original goals very well, from both viewpoints of STEM education and nuclear safety education at early stage (pre secondary) levels. We concluded that the blend education worked well for STEM education to much extent.

Eco Car Project for Japan Students as a Virtual PBL Class

Abstract Problem Based Learning (PBL) is a powerful tool for engineering design education. On the other hand, STEM education at pre-college levels is important, particularly for engineering education, to increase and maintain a nations industrial competitiveness. In this paper, virtual PBL in Second Life was carried out for third graders (18 year old students) in some national colleges of technology, Japan. At the beginning of the class, teachers proposed an ill-structured problem for students to solve, like one in real life. The problem was “design your own eco-cars through virtual discussion and make them by prim virtually”. Students as avatars discussed the problem in Second Life using microphones. They designed their own eco-cars using pens and tablets and made virtual cars with prims. After the project was completed, they evaluated their work by offline questionnaires and online talks in the virtual world. All of the results were examined from the viewpoints of the effectiveness for engineering design and STEM education.

Introducing Eye Blink of a Student to the Virtual World and Evaluating the Affection of the Eye Blinking During the e-learning

Abstract Problem Based Learning (PBL) is an educational process by which problem-solving activities and instructors guidance facilitate learning. The PBL is suffered from the current issues in the traditional education system such as enhancing quality, reducing cost and increasing access. Virtual e-Learning (VeL) can be overcome those issues and become a major way of delivering the knowledge. The VeL is in early stage and there are many ways to enhance the effectiveness of the VeL. The establishment of the non-verbal features, which are essential elements in the education process, [1] is a one way of improving the quality of VeL. One of the non-verbal features (Eye blink) is visualized in the VeL and the affection of that non-verbal feature to the VeL is accessed in this research. The eye blink, which is an important non-verbal feature of the real student [2] , is mirrored in the VeL environment. The affection of the eye blink was evaluated through an experiment with the responses of the e-Learning participants. The experiment consisted by PBL sessions with and without eye blinking. The evaluated factors of the questionnaire showed that a high rate of positive responses during the sessions with the eye blinks than the session without the eye blinks and also the difference of the mean ranks is 25%. Further, Mann-Whitney U test is utilized to analyze the responses of the students to determine whether there is a significant difference in the sessions with and without the eye blinking. It is identified that the eye blink helps to enhance the effectiveness of the group discussion significantly over the effect size value (r) of the selected factors have more than 0.62 suggested a moderate to high practical significance when they utilized the eye blinks in the VeL.

Remote Sensing of Radiation Dose Rate by Customizing an Autonomous Robot

Distribution of radiation dose was measured by customizing an autonomous cleaning robot Roomba and a scintillation counter. The robot was used as a vehicle carrying the scintillation survey meter, and was additionally equipped with an H8 micro computer to remote-control the vehicle and to send measured data. The data obtained were arranged with position data, and then the distribution map of the radiation dose rate was produced. Manual, programmed and autonomous driving tests were conducted, and all performances were verified. That is, for each operational mode, the measurements both with moving and with discrete moving were tried in and outside of a room. Consequently, it has been confirmed that remote sensing of radiation dose rate is possible by customizing a robot on market.

Study on Evaluation Methods for Mechanical Properties of Organic Semiconductor Materials

This paper describes the evaluation method of the mechanical properties of the materials constituting organic semiconductor, and the test result of the relation between applied strain and the fracture of thin films. The final target of this work is the improvement of flexibility of organic light emitting diode(OLED), the tensile test of the thin films coated on flexible substrate is conducted, and the vulnerable parts of the constituent material of the OLED is quantitatively understood, further the guideline for designing OLED structure will be obtained. In the present paper, tensile test of an aluminium oxide thin films deposited on a poly-ethylene-tere-phtalate (PET) substrate was carried out under constant conditions, the following results were obtained:(1)Cracking of the aluminium oxide thin films was observed using an optical transparent formula microscope at more than 40 times magnification; (2)Cracking was initiated at a strain of about 3%; (3)the number of cracks increased proportional to the strain, and saturated at about 9% strain; (4)Organic thin films α-NPD caused the same cracking as oxide thin films.

Optimizing Structure of LED Light Bulb for Heat Transfer

In this paper, in order to optimize the heat transfer structure of LED light bulb, the effects of various parameters on the temperature of the LED device were systematically analyzed, and a design guideline was shown. Although LED device has become popular due to its high-efficiency and long life, the design issues on the heat transfer structure of LED light bulbs has still remained. Because the original efficiency and life of the LED device can not be obtained due to the local temperature rise of LED element and the surrounding polymer molding material. Therefore, heat transfer analysis by finite element method was conducted systematically by changing parameters such as the shape, number and thickness of the radiating fin of the LED. As a result, advantage of open type structure was shown, and the proper design guidance for the structure of the fin shape was obtained.

Some Psychological Responses Measured by a Commercial Electrooculography Sensor and Its Applicability

Abstract Students’ psychological responses were evaluated by a commercial electrooculography (EOG) sensor. As psychological responses, we picked up two factors – concentration power and the impression about the simplicity for problem solving. A glass-type EOG sensor detected the electrooculogram and calculated the blink rate (focus), the blink strength (calmness) and the head posture (posture), constituting the final parameter called concentration power. In this study, we investigated the correlation between the two psychological responses and EOG parameters. We could confirm the qualitative correlation between the EOG parameter corresponding to concentration power and the psychological response. At this point, we presume that it could be applied to e-learning in virtual classrooms soon. As for the impression about the simplicity to solve problems, we could not found the reasonable correlation. However, the detailed analyses for all of the parameters and their time-dependent behaviors might make it clearer and also other relations with more psychological response.