Smart Sensors for Augmented Electrical Experiments.

Sebastian Kapp,Fabian Beil,Frederik Lauer,Jochen Kuhn,Carl C Rheinländer,Norbert Wehn

doi:10.3390/s22010256

Abstract

With the recent increase in the use of augmented reality (AR) in educational laboratory settings, there is a need for new intelligent sensor systems capturing all aspects of the real environment. We present a smart sensor system meeting these requirements for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) experiments in electrical circuits. The system consists of custom experiment boxes and cables combined with an application for the Microsoft HoloLens 2, which creates an AR experiment environment. The boxes combine sensors for measuring the electrical voltage and current at the integrated electrical components as well as a reconstruction of the currently constructed electrical circuit and the position of the sensor box on a table. Combing these data, the AR application visualizes the measurement data spatially and temporally coherent to the real experiment boxes, thus fulfilling demands derived from traditional multimedia learning theory. Following an evaluation of the accuracy and precision of the presented sensors, the usability of the system was evaluated with pupils in a German high school. In this evaluation, the usability of the system was rated with a system usability score of 94 out of 100.

Highlights

In the context of STEM education, it is essential to teach students the facts and the ways of thinking about various disciplines and conceptual connections (e.g., [1,2])
We present a new system based on smart sensors integrated into electrical experiment components for inquiry-based learning in STEM disciplines that can be seamlessly integrated into augmented reality (AR) environments for visualization and, in the future, for diagnosis and AI applications
Since our sensor boxes are usually located on a table, moving on a 2D plane, and the requirement for update rates are not quite as high as in VR, we developed our own implementation of a tracking device with a focus on a simple and cost-effective implementation

Summary

Introduction

In the context of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education, it is essential to teach students the facts and the ways of thinking about various disciplines and conceptual connections (e.g., [1,2]) This is often accomplished through the use of inquiry learning, in which students use experiments and research processes to construct knowledge [3]. Using AR in laboratory settings thereby enables the integration of virtual information (e.g., measurement data) into the real environment without hindering interaction [18,19,20] This allows formerly invisible phenomena and abstract quantities to become visible (e.g., heat or electricity) as well as visualizing functional relations between real components and virtual visualizations using the spatial and temporal contiguity between them [12,21]. In Ainsworth [38], the authors thereby identified three core functions of MERs that promote learning: (a) they can provide different and complementary information or allow complementary approaches to process information, (b) they mutually influence the use or interpretation of the representations involved through familiarity with one type of representation or inherent properties of the representation, and (c) they facilitate the formation of deeper knowledge structures by enabling the integration of related information from different representations

Methods

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Discussion

Conclusion