Remote and Virtual Labs for Engineering Education 4.0: Achievements of the ELLI project at the TU Dortmund University

Abstract

The requirements on the education of engineers change with an increasing demand from the industry to drive the transformation of the fourth industrial revolution. A series of education-related research projects was therefore launched by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany (BMBF), of which the cooperative project ELLI - “Excellent Teaching and Learning in Engineering Science” is one among the most extensive. Of the three universities involved, namely RWTH Aachen University, Ruhr-Universität Bochum and TU Dortmund University, the last is at the center of the development of remote and virtual labs for mechanical engineering education with a focus on manufacturing technology. A tele-operative material characterization testing cell was conceptualized and implemented, along with a remote lab for incremental tube forming. To make further use of the remote labs, a Massive-Open-Online-Course (MOOC) was created which incorporates remote labs as part of the applied didactic methods. To overcome the limits of remote labs, virtual representations of these labs and a general virtual experimentation lab were developed. They are designed for different devices enabling the students to explore and experiment complex processes visually. All these measures are currently being integrated into various lectures in different study programs. In the second funding phase, ELLI2, the spectrum of the developed labs is broadened by the inclusion of new processes and introduction of technologies, such as Augmented Reality and Additive Manufacturing.