Virtual Reality Environment for Engineering (VREE): A 3D Environment to Train Engineers about Post-Earthquake Damages in Building Structure
Authors: Astha Kumar, Gautami Gudla, Preetham Ramesh
Faculty Supervisor: Shahrukh Humayoun
Department: Computer Science
In the case of teaching engineering concepts in classroom settings, instructors may not have sufficient live examples to demonstrate properly many critical concepts important to understanding real-life applications. For example, due to the scale of structural projects (e.g., buildings, bridges, stadiums, etc.), most Civil Engineering (CE) instructors cannot provide hands-on experiences to students such as manipulating and handling structural elements. Only select universities have the resources to access construction sites for their engineering students or expose them to research facilities capable of testing scaled and full-sized systems. Teaching through traditional approaches (e.g., pictures and videos) may limit students' abilities in understanding properly such concepts, which may result in reduced class engagement. With the goal of enhancing students' skills, competencies, and class engagement, we developed a simulated environment to train civil engineering students and practitioners about different kinds of post-earthquake damage to buildings. The resulting virtual reality (VR) environment, called Virtual Reality Environment for Engineering (VREE), enables CE students to get training on understanding different kinds of structural damages without the risks of going physical there in the building. Also, the environment is created to evaluate students' and professionals' knowledge of structural damages in order to make sure that they have obtained the required skills and competencies. Through the implementation of these exercises, we aim to increase students’ engagement and material comprehension in upper division structural engineering courses.