Enhancing the Learning Success of Engineering Students by Virtual Experiments

In a world that is characterized by highly specialized industry sectors, the demand for well-educated engineers increases significantly. Thus, the education of engineering students has become a major field of interest for universities. However, not every university is able to provide the required number of industry demonstrators to impart the needed practical knowledge to students. Our aim is to fill this gap by establishing Remote Labs. These laboratory experiments are performed in Virtual Reality environments which represent real laboratories accessible from different places. Following the implementation of such Remote Labs described within our past publications the aim of this contribution is to examine and evaluate possibilities of controlling Remote Labs from arbitrary locations. These control mechanisms are based on the virtualization of two concurrently working six-axis robots in combination with a game pad remote controller. The evaluation of the virtual demonstrator is carried out in terms of a study that is based on practical tests and questionnaires to the measure learning success.